Kineticist free hand requirement

[Kaii Broom]

Hello, I would like to hear peoples thoughts (or a definitive answer) to the kineticist using a tail to "shape the elemental flow":

"You can use an impulse only if your kinetic aura is active and channeling that element, and only if you have a hand free to shape the elemental flow."

Now, the Vanara and the skillfull tail feat have ways to substitute for a hand in a limited way:

Vanara (prehensile tail): "You can use your long, flexible tail to perform Interact actions requiring a free hand, even if both hands are otherwise occupied. Your tail can't perform actions that require fingers or significant manual dexterity, including any action that would require a check to accomplish, and you can't use it to hold items."

Skillfull tail: "You’ve always had a tail, but with practice, you’ve learned to use it for more than signaling your mood. You can perform simple Interact actions with your tail, such as opening an unlocked door. Your tail can’t perform actions that require fingers or significant manual dexterity, including any action that would require a check to accomplish, and you can’t use it to hold items."

I understand that "shaping the elemental flow" is not an interact action, but it seems to just require a free hand, for which these features seems to be a limited replacement. Impulses themselves use checks (atk rolls) but the action of using an impulse doesn't require one to make a check before using it.

Now to the specifics: I would like to play a kineticist with the fan dancer archetype, and certain feats require wielding 2 fans. My idea was to have a tail that could allow for impulses to be used.

Thank you for any insight.

[Agonarchy]

Hand use is for abilities is specifically intended as a balancing mechanism; giving up a hand is trade-off for power, not just an aesthetic thing. Hand-required abilities are, in essence, weapon/shield slot items, but more flexible since you don't need to swap between spellcasting hands and grappling hands. The two-fan features are written that way explicitly to use up both of your hand slots so you can't use open hand features without spending an action to swap.

[moosher12]

In a game I'm playing in, I'm setting up an Air Kineticist with the fan dancer archetype. Me and the GM agreed that we can work around the rule as long as the fans are props, not actual weapons, so we used performance fans instead of fighting fans.

In my own games, that's already my intention. Worth trying the argument with your GM.

We decided to say that the performance fans were as expensive as a pair of instruments.

But this is in the realm of home ruling, so a GM may still say no to this approach. As Agonarchy says, RaW, strictly speaking, you could only have one fan and still use your kineticist abilities.

[Perpdepog]

Does Fan Dancer give you access to any feats like Quick Draw?

[moosher12]

Perpdepog wrote:

Does Fan Dancer give you access to any feats like Quick Draw?

Unfortunately no.

[Kaii Broom]

Agonarchy wrote:

Hand use is for abilities is specifically intended as a balancing mechanism; giving up a hand is trade-off for power, not just an aesthetic thing. Hand-required abilities are, in essence, weapon/shield slot items, but more flexible since you don't need to swap between spellcasting hands and grappling hands. The two-fan features are written that way explicitly to use up both of your hand slots so you can't use open hand features without spending an action to swap.

Thank you for writing this out. I was leaning towards this interpretation as well, but I wanted to see the responses. It's a good thing that ateast the pushing wind feat requires only 1 fan.

[Kaii Broom]

moosher12 wrote:

In a game I'm playing in, I'm setting up an Air Kineticist with the fan dancer archetype. Me and the GM agreed that we can work around the rule as long as the fans are props, not actual weapons, so we used performance fans instead of fighting fans.

In my own games, that's already my intention. Worth trying the argument with your GM.

We decided to say that the performance fans were as expensive as a pair of instruments.

But this is in the realm of home ruling, so a GM may still say no to this approach. As Agonarchy says, RaW, strictly speaking, you could only have one fan and still use your kineticist abilities.

I did talk with some players and they are lenient on it, but I'm more of a rules stickler so I don't think I'll press for that unless the other players get homebrew stuff.