So someone tell me what benefit does Elemental Instinct Barbarian have over Dragon blooded? I am actually pretty interested but It looks like a watered down Dragon instinct, especially if I don't spend class feats on Kineticist which it seems like the game enforces you to do, if you wan to make use of your instinct special ability outside of elemental damage...
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So someone tell me what benefit does Elemental Instinct Barbarian have over Dragon blooded? I am actually pretty interested but It looks like a watered down Dragon instinct, especially if I don't spend class feats on Kineticist which it seems like the game enforces you to do, if you wan to make use of your instinct special ability outside of elemental damage...
You might've missed that the instinct ability also makes you concealed against all ranged attacks? Solving your low AC against anybody who doesn't want to go toe-to-toe with you is huge, and doesn't require any feat investment.
Oh crap I did.
Oh crap I did.
It's an easy one to miss- hope that helps!
I agree elemental instinct is a little weird execution-wise. I think this one should probably been a class archetype since this instinct is otherwise kinda useless if you don't play with Free Archetype. I don't think its a bad subclass because it allows barbarians to do stuff other barbarians can't (even through the whole thing about impulses and the rage trait should be clarified) but I feel the instinct is restrained a little by not being a class archetype.
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Also worth noting that barbarians generally don't use stances, and there are some pretty nice "screw every enemy near me" stances on the Kineticist. Air Shroud, Thermal Nimbus, and Winter Sleet are all great for a character who really *wants* to be right up in the fact of the enemy, and they're all available at level 8.
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I agree elemental instinct is a little weird execution-wise. I think this one should probably been a class archetype since this instinct is otherwise kinda useless if you don't play with Free Archetype. I don't think its a bad subclass because it allows barbarians to do stuff other barbarians can't (even through the whole thing about impulses and the rage trait should be clarified) but I feel the instinct is restrained a little by not being a class archetype.
It's not useless without the class archetype.
*It does the same damage as dragon until level 7, when dragon pulls ahead by two whole points. That's not a factor until many campaigns are more than halfway over.
*You get concealment against range attacks out the gate, giving you superior defenses to dragon.
*It has a solid level 2 two feat which gives you an additional damage option to bypass defenses or triggers weakness. (Level 2 being a pretty barren level for barbarians, including a crummy dragon instinct option.)
*Elemental blast does superior damage to dragon's breath, with no one hour half strength cool down. The areas of effects are pretty different. Cones/lines are better for casters, but to a front line damage dealer who can't be flanked thanks to uncanny dodge, jumping into a clump of enemies to blow them all up is pretty viable.
The only advantages dragon has are slightly better damage at higher levels and the option for flight at 12th level. And dragon is generally regarded as the best instinct. Calling Elemental "kinda useless" is essentially calling every instinct kinda useless because none are unequivocally superior to it.
This is fair!
I mean, "useless" was a bit hyperbolic since I feel the selling point of the subclass is to use impulses with it, which is a thing you don't get on your own unless you take the kineticist dedication.
I mean, "useless" was a bit hyperbolic since I feel the selling point of the subclass is to use impulses with it, which is a thing you don't get on your own unless you take the kineticist dedication.
That's certainly the most unique thing the subclass offers, but my point is it is a perfectly respectable instinct even if you never touch kineticist. It just gets even better if you take it. (Arguably, at least. It runs into problems if you don't let impulses be used outside of rage because that limits their utility, which is a big draw for the archetype.)
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Also, giant instinct is helped significantly more by free archetype than elemental. The big advantage of giant instinct isn't that it does slightly better damage than dragon. It is abusing the huge reach it offers to slam enemies before they can reach you. Titan's Stature and Reactive Strike are the centerpieces of this build, but both are level 6 class feats. Free archetype lets you take fighter for reactive strike at 4th instead. I guess you could still spend your regular feats to do this, but then you basically get no class feat at 2nd because the fighter dedication by itself is bad.
Free archetype lets you take fighter for reactive strike at 4th instead.
Normally archetyping will do that fine for you, it doesn't have to be free. But otherwise good points.
Elemental is pretty awesome in a dual class game if wanting to play a kineticist barbarian.
It does have some interesting interactions if you take kineticist archetype as well. You can pick up weapon infusion and depending on how strict your DM is, you can get Raging Thrower and create thrown elemental blasts that add your strength and rage damage. Not sure how a more by the book DM rules this, but in our campaigns we allow it. It looks cool.
Earth armor is pretty good too for a low level kineticist feat that allows you to armor up as a barb in heavy armor.
You can get a few AOE blast attacks like tremor.
I was an earth barbarian with earth kineticist.
I think it is a pretty solid combination if you plan to use kineticist archetype that opens up some nice feat choices to round out being a barb. Just wish it allowed for a dual gate kineticist, but it really only plays well with a single gate kineticist.
Earth armor is pretty good too for a low level kineticist feat that allows you to armor up as a barb in heavy armor.
The awkward bit is that the Elemental Instinct says "If you have any kineticist impulses with the same element type as the one you chose for your instinct... they gain the rage trait." Which is bad for Armor in Earth, since it has a 10 minute duration and explicitly stays up when your kinetic aura isn't active. The Rage trait reads "You must be raging to use abilities with the rage trait, and they end automatically when you stop raging."
So you have to choose between "you have to spend an action to turn your armor on every time combat starts" in addition to the action you spend to rage, or just picking a different element for your kineticist feats so you can turn them on and keep them on when not raging.
Like the standard justification for "walking around with Armor in Earth" active is that every 10 minutes you can spend a couple of actions refreshing it."
Earth armor is pretty good too for a low level kineticist feat that allows you to armor up as a barb in heavy armor.The awkward bit is that the Elemental Instinct says "If you have any kineticist impulses with the same element type as the one you chose for your instinct... they gain the rage trait." Which is bad for Armor in Earth, since it has a 10 minute duration and explicitly stays up when your kinetic aura isn't active. The Rage trait reads "You must be raging to use abilities with the rage trait, and they end automatically when you stop raging."
So you have to choose between "you have to spend an action to turn your armor on every time combat starts" in addition to the action you spend to rage, or just picking a different element for your kineticist feats so you can turn them on and keep them on when not raging.
Like the standard justification for "walking around with Armor in Earth" active is that every 10 minutes you can spend a couple of actions refreshing it."
How often are you not going to rage as a barbarian? Once you hit level 11, you activate armor in earth when you enter your rage.
That is at level 11, though. That's a ways to wait.
It's still not hard even earlier. It's a one action impulse. Easy to do when raging and worth it for the counter to the AC minus from raging.
That is at level 11, though. That's a ways to wait.It's still not hard even earlier. It's a one action impulse. Easy to do when raging and worth it for the counter to the AC minus from raging.
It seems pretty hard to do round 1, when the barbarian really wants to rage/stride/strike. Maybe on later rounds if they start next to an enemy.
Armor in Earth is normally a "you can have this active all the time" thing - if a GM is making you spend actions to start it up during combat it should only be in a situation where the champion is unarmored for narrative reasons.
A by the book DM would make it so you couldn't use Armor in Earth unless you are raging due to the wording of the rage trait, but I think the intention for Elemental was to allow a raging barbarian to use elemental abilities while raging without punishing you for taking kineticist archetype as a barbarian.
Another one of those rules that missed the overall mark punishing a barbarian taking anything other than rage abilities. If you ran it as anything other than the Kineticist abilities gain the rage trait when you are raging, then you are setting the PC up for failure for taking kineticist archetype.
I get a RAW reading of elemental instinct creating a punitive situation with the Kineticist archetype if ran RAW by a DM that runs that strict.
I don't run that strict. Elemental Instinct should have made it clear the kineticist abilities only gain the rage trait when they barbarian with kineticist archetype is raging. But you know Paizo, they often forget how exacting some of their player base is. You forget to spell even one little rule out and suddenly some DM is punishing a barbarian who spent the feats for taking kineticist archetype with elemental instinct only allowing them to use their kineticist abilities when raging. It probably will take forever to fix.
Then again, maybe we'll get lucky with Player Core 2 and find out they changed the rage trait or got rid of it.
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You can pick up weapon infusion and depending on how strict your DM is, you can get Raging Thrower and create thrown elemental blasts that add your strength and rage damage. Not sure how a more by the book DM rules this, but in our campaigns we allow it. It looks cool.
It's not RAW. Blasts with weapon infusion are not weapon attacks. It's also pretty clearly not RAI. The designers have make it pretty clear that kineticist impulses don't get boosts from weapon things or from spell things, because cutting out all of that stuff let them maximize the amount of power and utility they crammed into the class directly, and that's what they did.
You can, of course, play that way if you like. Houserules are a thing, and any houserule that makes the experience more fun for the entire table is a good houserule.
That really doesn't mean anything for the people who aren't at your table, though.
You can pick up weapon infusion and depending on how strict your DM is, you can get Raging Thrower and create thrown elemental blasts that add your strength and rage damage. Not sure how a more by the book DM rules this, but in our campaigns we allow it. It looks cool.It's not RAW. Blasts with weapon infusion are not weapon attacks. It's also pretty clearly not RAI. The designers have make it pretty clear that kineticist impulses don't get boosts from weapon things or from spell things, because cutting out all of that stuff let them maximize the amount of power and utility they crammed into the class directly, and that's what they did.
You can, of course, play that way if you like. Houserules are a thing, and any houserule that makes the experience more fun for the entire table is a good houserule.
That really doesn't mean anything for the people who aren't at your table, though.
Pretty sure my ruling wasn't RAW or RAI, but it's cool so I allow it. A raging barbarian kineticist who spent the feats getting their rage damage on a spear of elemental material is just cool. The blasts don't do very good damage, so I didn't consider if game breaking. It's fun and generally inferior for damage to their melee damage, but it does look very cool. So why stop it?
The other awkward thing is that if you're a dual class barbarian kineticist or a elemental barbarian with the kineticist archetype you can't even use impulses unless you open your gate. So if you start combat without it open (and tables are going to vary about how acceptable this is) your first round is:
1) Rage
2) Activate Kinetic Aura (which allows you to use a 1-action elemental blase or a stance impulse, armor in earth is neither)
3) Activate Armor in Earth
At level 11 you save one action here.
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In all honesty, since using elemental blasts is enough of a hassle for a non-kineticist (I still can't understand why Paizo thought that an effectively non-scaling cantrip was a good idea for a dedication when literally any caster dedication gives you at least two functional cantrips) I don't really mind weapon infusion being considered as a weapon for other effects. With Dual Class though, it can surely create some nasty combinations.
The other awkward thing is that if you're a dual class barbarian kineticist or a elemental barbarian with the kineticist archetype you can't even use impulses unless you open your gate. So if you start combat without it open (and tables are going to vary about how acceptable this is) your first round is:
1) Rage
2) Activate Kinetic Aura (which allows you to use a 1-action elemental blase or a stance impulse, armor in earth is neither)
3) Activate Armor in EarthAt level 11 you save one action here.
When you activate kinetic aura, you can do a blast or a stance. Eventually you get Assume Earth's Mantle, which is a stance. So you might rage, activate Assume Earth's Mantle Stance, and Armor of Earth is incorporated into it. It's interesting.
Sadly kineticist dedication specifies you don't get to do a blast or a stance when you activate your aura.
I think it's best to wait for PC3 to come out before making an elemental barb though. I don't think the rage trait will change (it's described in howl of the wild appendix and works the same way it does now), but getting to rage as a free action will really help. Who knows what other goodies they'll get.
You also can't use Assume Earth's Mantle. That's a level 14 feat; you'd need to be level 28 before you could take it.
The post I was referring to was dual class, not MC dedication.
For a MC dedication, you would have to sift the high value low level feats likely AOO or movement power.
One thing I do find interesting is that it says "If you have any kineticist impluses with the same element as the one you choose for your instinct... They gain the rage trait."
This is interesting because it means you could choose air for your instinct, then choose earth for your dedication. The earth impluses wouldn't get the rage trait. That does mean you can't use anything that requires concentration during rage (your earth impluses) but it does mean you could use them before you rage. While the impluse action trait does require concentrate to use, things like the armors do not require they be used every round. So a first round could be getting into aura, armor and some other long lasting affect, then raging with them all after. Definitely not an effective routine, but workable.
I agree though that it's best to just wait and see if there will be any major changes to how rage works in the PC2.
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Considering that the part about them gaining the rage trait is in the block of text that says what happens when you rage, I think it's perfectly valid to interpret that as them gaining the rage trait while you're raging... and only then.
That's how I run it. The RAI seems intended to allow you to use Kineticist Impulses while raging as one of the big benefits that balances elemental rage.
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Pretty sure my ruling wasn't RAW or RAI, but it's cool so I allow it. A raging barbarian kineticist who spent the feats getting their rage damage on a spear of elemental material is just cool. The blasts don't do very good damage, so I didn't consider if game breaking. It's fun and generally inferior for damage to their melee damage, but it does look very cool. So why stop it?
You doing it at your own table is fine. If everyone's enjoying it, then that's all you need. I'm glad you all find joy in it.
...but "I have this houserule that makes Elemental Barbarian more awesome" is not actually a viable argument for why the Elemental Barbarian is worth playing in general.
...but "I have this houserule that makes Elemental Barbarian more awesome" is not actually a viable argument for why the Elemental Barbarian is worth playing in general.
I mean it kind of is, in the sense that sometimes Paizo drops the ball really badly and it's good for users to discuss how they address that.
I mean it kind of is, in the sense that sometimes Paizo drops the ball really badly and it's good for users to discuss how they address that.
...but "I have this houserule that makes Elemental Barbarian more awesome" is not actually a viable argument for why the Elemental Barbarian is worth playing in general.
The thing that you're describing here and the thing that he said are not the same thing.
Further, I assert that this particular houserule is not an indicator of Paizo having dropped the ball really badly. Among other things, it's a houserule specifically on the no-longer-supported dual-class option.
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The "your impulses get the rage trait when you are raging" is reasonable errata, but it's not how I read it initially.