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Well, I can only hope that they'll do a big book of specific class options one day. It'd be more interesting to me to have broader way to build the many classes already out than to get more and more base classes, since we will be almost at 30 of them once this year is over. IMO, they should slow down a bit with that and focus more on broadening options for what already exists.It absolutely is possible to publish more impulses and I dearly wish Paizo would just get on with it. :)For whatever reason, Paizo is sort of allergic to print more class specific options for most of the lifespan of PF2. Back in PF1 we would have a new sorcerer bloodline every other month in APs and player companions, but now I think they've added like 4 in non-rulebook sources. There's a great many things that could use more feats for them (most uncommon ancestries are pretty limited here) and they just don't print them.
I assume the reason for this is that they'd rather print a player option that appeals to more classes than just one, so they'd rather do archetypes than class feats, but still there's a bunch of classes I'd like to see more stuff for.
More than 30, if you count the fully compatible SF2E classes!
Gosh that's a lot.
It's the worst class in terms of skills and outside skills it doesn't have much outside mobility enhancers. From my experience, a couple Kineticists in a PFS party and you're doomed to fail most skill challenges. Experience will differ from table to table and how the GM handle skills, so useless is an overstatement. But it's not far from the proper adjective to describe the Kineticist outside combat.
Well, yes and no.
Being forced to invest in CON is a hindrance, true, but they can gain a status bonus to their favorite skills, and that's pretty hard to come by unless you're using heroism.Of course, most builds will be hard-pressed to invest heavily in CHA, but the bonus to intimidation from fire can fill the gap and if you really want to build for it, you'll eventually become the most threatening guy in the game.
It'll be easier for earth, where you'll probably invest in STR anyway and so will easily get the highest athletics in the game.
Same for air and stealth.
Of course, a lot of people don't take skill junction because there's so many juicy things to get before - but if you want, you can be the best in those few skills.
Of course, most builds will be hard-pressed to invest heavily in CHA, but the bonus to intimidation from fire can fill the gap and if you really want to build for it, you'll eventually become the most threatening guy in the game.
There are other ways to become the most threatening guy in the game ;)
And starting with high Charisma on a Kineticist will have a severe impact on your combat abilities. So quite often the skill bonus just compensates your lack of attribute bonus.
As for the Stealth bonus, as you need your gate to be open it's... a bit problematic to use.
So overall it's really Athletics that you can maximize and it's mostly an in combat skill (so we're back to square one).
I agree but if they used an offensive fire impulse to put fire or one of their many walls (including Architect of Flame) for chase situation the things would be way more acceptable.We are speaking of putting out a fire, not putting things on fire. And a wall doesn't help you to run faster. But when it comes to mobility, you have other things to use anyway.
Sorry english isn't my primary language so I miss understood. So yeah the only option is to Base Kinesis but we don't know how much is 1 bulk in terms of size, in terms of weight is less than 10 pounds. I found someone making a joke about this in reddit:
Not an answer to realistically use at the table, but if one bulk is about 5-10 lb then with E=mc2 we estimate the energy controlled to be ~1014 J —about the size of the Hiroshima nuclear explosion if memory serves
Jokes apart the best option would be use Base Kinesis will be to use a similar weight of water. So you could supress 15oz (450ml) of volume with a light bulk or a volume of 150oz(4,5l) at level 5, 300oz(9l) and so on.
I asked to GPT to calculate the avg of water volume to extingish a square (5ft size) and it responded that is between 500oz and 1000oz so we need a lvl 13 kineticist to extingish a 5ft square per round (6s) with Base Kinesis it's a pretty high lvl to do so little.
About chase. The chase subsystem rules allows to use objects to block the creatures path. So you can use walls to block the path of whoever you are chasing or your pursuers. Specially when you are doing this in corridors or streets.
A bulk should be enough to put out a simple camp fire but not a bonfire. Maybe two bulk to silence the embers. One bulk is enough to make a "long tool" based on the Sculpt option of Extended Kinesis. Long tools include things like shovels and sledgehammers, so basically two-handed weapon size items or high-volume single-handed objects like normal shields, but certainly not a wheelbarrow.
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I get the impression that Paizo sort of expected you to 'make up' for the lack of skills with basic kinesis and utility impulses, but leveraging those is really hit or miss and requires both specific scenarios and a lot of GM buy in that makes it a much more unreliable solution, imo.
No Kineticist feat in Tian Xian Character Guide was questionable though...
Reminded of when everyone thought the spooky mystery book Dark Archive would definitely have cool toys for Investigators but it ended up just having a few druid feats instead.
Or Monks being one of the classes with its own section of new stuff in Secrets of Magic.
It doesn't help that in general Paizo is very reluctant to devote much book space to class specific content in general and the Kineticist is an extremely page-space heavy class to begin with.
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Really though an impulse shouldn't take more page space than a spell, and we get new spells in books all the time. Sure a new primal, for example, spell can be cast by 5 different classes, but you could put in a new impulse, for example, 1/5th as often as a new primal spell.
It is a little bit annoying how spellcasting classes regularly get content in the backmatter of APs since they're comfortable throwing out new spells just whenever compared to how often non-spellcasting classes get anything in those spaces.
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Your GM was really nice, as base kinesis will never put out a fire nor any chase impediment. It only affects an item of a few bulks at most (and at rather high level, at low level you snuff out a candle). I've never seen Base Kinesis being of any use but I've seen countless times where the player wanted to use it before I reminded them that it only affects a target the size of their fist.Kineticist is my poster child for the class that should absolutely take Untrained Improvisation at Level 3.
I've actually seen Kineticists be quite useful in skill challenges in PFS *if* they are able to leverage their Basic Kinesis into an auto-success. (I once played three straight scenarios where the skill challenge was "putting out a fire" for instance, and our Fire Kineticist was MVP. Also a lot of the impediments in Chases can involve Wood or Earth.) Even if you don't allow auto-successes in those situations (which you should, because relevant Spells are generally granted auto-success) if you can argue for your Kinesis you can often argue for changing the check to a Nature check.
Wow, you are right. These were challenges where a success was putting out a single square of a multi-square fire, so it wasn't *that* egregious, but it is definitely beyond the scope of Basic Kinesis. It is possible that that particular Kineticist had taken Extended Kinesis, but I don't think so.
I think everything I've seen done would be within the scope of Extended Kinesis, which is I guess an argument for that being a more useful feat than it might appear.
Wow, you are right. These were challenges where a success was putting out a single square of a multi-square fire, so it wasn't *that* egregious, but it is definitely beyond the scope of Basic Kinesis.
I think Base Kinesis really embodies the Kineticist issue with out of combat contribution. First, it obviously shows that the ability is weak. But it also points out how the Kineticist is limited in terms of skills and as such has to search for a way to do something no one else in the party is better at. When all you have is base kinesis, every problem looks like a nail/flame/rock/log/etc...
Really though an impulse shouldn't take more page space than a spell, and we get new spells in books all the time. Sure a new primal, for example, spell can be cast by 5 different classes, but you could put in a new impulse, for example, 1/5th as often as a new primal spell.
It is a little bit annoying how spellcasting classes regularly get content in the backmatter of APs since they're comfortable throwing out new spells just whenever compared to how often non-spellcasting classes get anything in those spaces.
The point is that spells can be used by all other spellcasting classes that have access to the traditions of that spell, even those that don't even exist yet. Class feats, on the other hand, are much more restricted and less expandable.
So I understand that it's not possible to add feats to everyone, and as more classes are added, things get even more difficult. What I never understood was monks gaining feats in SoM and Barbarians gaining instincts in RoE. Sometimes the designers' choices are somewhat random, but that's not a problem, it's more of a curiosity.
As for impulses, I see that the kineticist is very popular and that this is an attraction for creating more impulses, but at the same time it's the class with the most feats, which is why designers may consider it the one that needs the least extra content. What I find strange are the Dark Archives classes that are still somewhat forgotten and aren't even rare. I was hoping they would get some love in WoI, especially the thaumaturge, but they didn't even get a touch.
Kineticist is the technically the class with the most feats, but the amount of those feats you have access varies. A single element kineticist has access to like 15 or so feats of their element. I know there's generic kineticist feats who bring up this number to something similar to the amount of feats most classes have on release, but if you tried to make a single element kineticist before you'll notice you are limited in options.
Impulses works like subclass specific feats like druid's order feats but with the diference that they depend way more from its subclass than druid and also get way more of subclass specific feats. Also just like druids and bards they have the option to get more subclasses but instead of use feat for this they can only get another via gate's threshold every 4 levels but can start with 2 at cost of start with a impulse junction.
I disagree about the main thing that put a player far from single element kineticist is the lack of feats also because you not only get impulse feats but you have a list of good kineticist non-impulse feats to get. Both together allows to make a very good kineticist without problems.
What make the people make 2 or 3 element kineticists is way more 2 factors. The fact that every impulse have at last one questionable junction and the fact that you probably have some other element cool feat that you want to take.
For example I don't make a earth/fire kineticist because earth or fire lacks of good impulses but because I want to get some defensive earth impulses along some strong offensive fire impulses and because I don't care about basically all Critical Blast because I use Elemental Blast as secondary attack, earth's aura junction isn't interesting enough and earth's skill junction action is athletics a skill feat too much combat oriented that have actions that I probably will never use due the kineticist action hungry at same time that I don't have interest in fire's critical blast and skill junction for similar reasons.
IMO these are the main reasons that most people doesn't take a single element kineticist. Because probably have other element impulse that calls your attention and probably you have at least one junction that you doesn't want so doesn't make sense to not take another element in trade of a uninteresting junction.
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It's also difficult to get diverse save targeting on monofire. Pretty much every impulse hits reflex. That alone encourages diversifying.
Honestly fire is a really cool element but I could never see myself going mono fire. I'm the type of player who likes to be better prepared for multiple situations than being amazing in a few.
Fire being only able to target reflex and nearly all their damage be fire is just not enough to cut the mustard for me. Especially when fire is the most resisted/immune damage type? I know they can have their blasts and thermal nimbus deal cold damage, but that's really paltry damage.
I would love to see some options to target will/fort/AC and other damage types as well. Wouldn't even be too broken imo, since so much if a fire kins extra damage comes from their aura giving fire weakness.
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2 elements and 3 elements are the most common choices as far as I can tell. 2 lets you get 5 different junctions, which is probably enough to get everything you could want from your favorite element anyway. 3 leaves you with 4 junctions, but you could pick 3 different aura junctions if that floats your boat.
But normally you'll have one element that provides your preferred offensive strategy, and the others are for utility/support, but you can freely switch to take advantage of weakness or to avoid resistance/immunity.
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I'm really only interested in mono-elemental Kineticists for thematic reasons, and then using Archetypes to flesh them out instead of additional elements.
I have a Dwarven Earth Kineticist/Stalwart Defender who is the tankiest of tanks and has a nice selection of battlefield control.
Everything else is theorycrafted -- next one on deck is probably an Air Kineticist/Monk, or a Wood Kineticist/Marshall.
If you wanted to make the dwarfiest dwarf kineticist, obviously you want earth, but why not also metal (which Dwarves famously are talented at working with) or fire/wood which are things that are related to earth (go up to get wood, go down to get fire.)
Not saying you can't be a single element, but having a second element probably doesn't hurt the premise of your character.
So the Inventor can be new innovations in the Tian Xia Character Guide, despite being the only class using these, but the Kineticist cannot get new impulses, despite being the only class using those?
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I'd say wood is probably the easiest to go solo element based on your choice of impulses. There's fortitude saves as well as reflex saves, you have sustainability with your impulse junction, defensive utility with timber sentinel and hardwood armor, and healing.
Its weakest aspect is offensive power but if you have things bleeding from turn one with hail of splinters it's not so bad.
If you wanted to make the dwarfiest dwarf kineticist, obviously you want earth, but why not also metal (which Dwarves famously are talented at working with) or fire/wood which are things that are related to earth (go up to get wood, go down to get fire.)
Not saying you can't be a single element, but having a second element probably doesn't hurt the premise of your character.
Mono-element is far more common in media, though. Only one avatar, but many single-element benders, etc.
Might've been nice to have some high-level impulses gated behind being mono-element to cover weaknesses, or have 'advanced' forms of a given element that only mono-elementalists can access. To keep up the Avatar analogies, it'd be like how the mono-element characters typically gain something special they can do as an advanced application of their element. E.G.,
Could serve as a way to make mono-element feel more palatable (admittedly by giving you something that may as well be a second element). I don't think it'd need to be any stronger than a normal second element to work, and honestly shouldn't be—it would just exist to make you feel better about taking a mono-element character, and make them feel more viable/unique.
Or you could just fork the path and reflavor it all with GM permission and just pretend you're mono-element. I was never really one for that, though. Always feels like you're cheating a bit if you just reflavor everything as you want.
One "trick" you can do to preserve the mono-theming is to make up your own "element."
I've got an on-the-shelf Kin that's named "Marrow" themed as being only "bone-related," while under the hood he's wood / earth.
You can also just paper over a few dual element combos and flavor some into matching. If someone wants to me momo-earth, they could easily reflavor some wood and metal impulses into earth things.
The mono-element kineticist can easily get composite impulse via elemental overlap, and you probably should since some of these are quite strong.
Like the mono-fire kineticist probably wants to grab molten wire, because it's quite strong- it applies clumsy and does fire damage every round until they escape and it is not overflow. So if you find yourself fighting something immune to both fire and cold, you can at least do slashing. The class still has no way to fight the Will-o-the-Wisp though.
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I miss the playtest elemental weapon. I wish there was something for your weapon proficiency for the off-chance of needing a backup weapon. Maybe a 4th level feat that mirrors bespell strikes for impulses or another kind of bonus while your aura is active.
Those situations might only be for will-o wisps though.
There's also a few things that at certain levels, might make strikes worth making over single action blasts. Conductive sphere, Kindle inner flames, and whirling grindstone to name a few. That's assuming those runes don't count towards your maximum though.
Honestly fire is a really cool element but I could never see myself going mono fire. I'm the type of player who likes to be better prepared for multiple situations than being amazing in a few.
Fire being only able to target reflex and nearly all their damage be fire is just not enough to cut the mustard for me. Especially when fire is the most resisted/immune damage type? I know they can have their blasts and thermal nimbus deal cold damage, but that's really paltry damage.
I would love to see some options to target will/fort/AC and other damage types as well. Wouldn't even be too broken imo, since so much if a fire kins extra damage comes from their aura giving fire weakness.
My biggest problem with mono fire is actually that it is one of the 3 elements that has low defensive power. This is not a big problem since it is one of the main factors that many casters deal with, especially without armor. But why get stuck with a weakness of one element if you cover it with another element?
I also agree that fire (as well as air) focuses a lot on reflexes, but it is not a big problem in practice, few monsters and NPCs have evasion, and in practice it is a medium save, since what I see more are creatures with high fortitude than with high reflexes. Usually when it does, they are sneaky creatures or rogues in general. But having diversity is never a bad thing.
As for fire being the element with the highest frequency of immune and resistant creatures, this is a very common fallacy and ignores the fact that it is the element that creatures are most weak to. In practice, the types of damage that by far have the most immunities are vitality, poison, mental, bleed and void, and the type of damage with the greatest amount of resistant creatures is physical, both against parts of it (normally low-level creatures), and against the whole thing (high-level creatures) as well as NPCs with shield blocking. In practice, fire operates more oscillating between being useless or devastating.
I'd say wood is probably the easiest to go solo element based on your choice of impulses. There's fortitude saves as well as reflex saves, you have sustainability with your impulse junction, defensive utility with timber sentinel and hardwood armor, and healing.
Its weakest aspect is offensive power but if you have things bleeding from turn one with hail of splinters it's not so bad.
In fact, Wood has two difficulties when it comes to playing Mono, in my opinion: the lack of damage diversity and powerful offensive impulses. It has a lot of buffs, debuffs and crowd control, but few damage impulses, and the types of damage I mentioned are among the worst: vitality, poison, bleed and physical. It also has one of the worst collections of junctions possible. In my opinion, only Impulse Junction is really worth it, the rest are mediocre or a meme like his aura junction.
It works well if you focus more on this point of providing support, it works better if you combine it with water.
For me, the two best elements to play mono are earth and metal because they provide a good balance of defensive and offensive power, with earth focusing more on attack (even having access to heavy armor and an impulse junction of +1 circumstance to AC) and metal has better defensive power, but needs to combine impulses to be really good.
If you wanted to make the dwarfiest dwarf kineticist, obviously you want earth, but why not also metal (which Dwarves famously are talented at working with) or fire/wood which are things that are related to earth (go up to get wood, go down to get fire.)
Not saying you can't be a single element, but having a second element probably doesn't hurt the premise of your character.
Mono-element is far more common in media, though. Only one avatar, but many single-element benders, etc.
Might've been nice to have some high-level impulses gated behind being mono-element to cover weaknesses, or have 'advanced' forms of a given element that only mono-elementalists can access. To keep up the Avatar analogies, it'd be like how the mono-element characters typically gain something special they can do as an advanced application of their element. E.G., ** spoiler omitted **
Could serve as a way to make mono-element feel more palatable (admittedly by giving you something that may as well be a second element). I don't think it'd need to be any stronger than a normal second element to work, and honestly shouldn't be—it would just exist to make you feel better about taking a mono-element character, and make them feel more viable/unique.
Or you could just fork the path and reflavor it all with GM permission and just pretend you're mono-element. I was never really one for that, though. Always feels like you're cheating a bit if you just reflavor everything as you want.
The main reason why monoelement is common in pop culture is because it helps to create the character's identity. Not only in Avatar, in anime it is common to find spellcasters who specialize in one element, and in comics, especially superheroes, it is common to find a super that has only one type of elemental power, at most 2, such as fire and cold. The other reason is to create clear weaknesses in these characters.
However, if you go to the gaming universe, the tendency is to go for greater versatility, because the player seeks precisely to cover the character's weaknesses. Even when he wants to specialize in something, he often wants to have a plan B or compensate for a very big weakness.
The mono-element kineticist can easily get composite impulse via elemental overlap, and you probably should since some of these are quite strong.
Like the mono-fire kineticist probably wants to grab molten wire, because it's quite strong- it applies clumsy and does fire damage every round until they escape and it is not overflow. So if you find yourself fighting something immune to both fire and cold, you can at least do slashing. The class still has no way to fight the Will-o-the-Wisp though.
The problem with getting composite impulses is that Elemental Overlap, besides being 2 levels higher than the impulses, is that you will hardly find a good variety of these impulses that combine well. They are precisely the group of impulses that most love or hate, because they can be very good for your build or completely useless. In the end, the fact that you can get another element for a very low cost (which is sacrificing a junction) and that gives you complete access to another element ends up making this feat even more unfeasible.
For this feat to be worth it, all the composites would have to be very good boosts and, above all, extremely versatile.
Those situations might only be for will-o wisps though.
Will-o wisps are not an exclusive problem for kineticists they also disables most casters in general. They're a weird thing for Paizo designers to go through.
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I'd say wood is probably the easiest to go solo element based on your choice of impulses. There's fortitude saves as well as reflex saves, you have sustainability with your impulse junction, defensive utility with timber sentinel and hardwood armor, and healing.
Its weakest aspect is offensive power but if you have things bleeding from turn one with hail of splinters it's not so bad.
In fact, Wood has two difficulties when it comes to playing Mono, in my opinion: the lack of damage diversity and powerful offensive impulses. It has a lot of buffs, debuffs and crowd control, but few damage impulses, and the types of damage I mentioned are among the worst: vitality, poison, bleed and physical. It also has one of the worst collections of junctions possible. In my opinion, only Impulse Junction is really worth it, the rest are mediocre or a meme like his aura junction.
It works well if you focus more on this point of providing support, it works better if you combine it with water.
For me, the two best elements to play mono are earth and metal because they provide a good balance of defensive and offensive power, with earth focusing more on attack (even having access to heavy armor and an impulse junction of +1 circumstance to AC) and metal has better defensive power, but needs to combine impulses to be really good.
The way I see it, it's easier to add value to most fights with wood, even if it's just a couple of timber sentinels and taking hits with your temp hp. The reliability of those as part of wood's play style is what makes it easiest imo. Metal and earth have better offensive options but don't have the same reliability.
Also, I'm not sure how metal is seen as a more defensive element. Its got a damage shield with its impulse junction but that's more offensive really and the other defensive impulses are level 12 and 14. Wood and earth are more straightforward defensively.
Metal is offensive to me with the benefit of being good against metal weapons and armored opponents. As well as plate it treasure giving you the ability to hit for special material weaknesses.
It has decent impulses but I'm not a huge fan of mono-metal because of its junctions.
Mono-earth is alright though. I like a decent number of its composites so it's fun to take Overlap with (though having it not come online until 8 feels bad).
However, if you go to the gaming universe, the tendency is to go for greater versatility, because the player seeks precisely to cover the character's weaknesses. Even when he wants to specialize in something, he often wants to have a plan B or compensate for a very big weakness.
The 'tendency' is to go for greater versatility in games like PF2 because PF2 actively works to encourage versatility at the expense of specialization, which makes the point kind of circular. The tendency exists because the system actively pushes players that way.
Specialized/focused builds are common enough in games that actively support them.
Apologies for being late with my reply, forgot to check here for a couple days! Tried my best to skim the convo that happened after this post as well, but apologies if I say anything that was covered already and I missed it.
And here I return to a point I've made before. Yes, the kineticist has some bad or ugly feats. But this isn't exclusive to kineticists. All classes have this to some degree.
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And for me, the kineticist is the complete opposite in terms of chassis and available feats. He is much more solid and interesting. So when someone comes here to the forum complaining that he is full of "crap" feats, what immediately comes to my mind is 'is this guy serious? If he thinks that about the kineticist, then for him the other classes must be crap! There is no way that he is getting stuck in levels without having "good" options like what happens with many other classes, he must be doing something wrong, either he is underestimating the potential of some feats or he simply wants the class to be perfect, something that does not exist and is not realistic the way these classes are made'.Honestly? I agree with you for the most part here, too. I apologize if my original take made it sound like I was calling the Kineticist overall crap, because I definitely don't think that. And I am aware that all classes have similar issues where it feels like there's nothing good in certain sections, as well as the fact that "good" is subjective and there are people who will die by even the worst Spell/Feature/etc.
My main point was merely that Kineticist has the problem where it *feels* worse in certain situations than other classes, due to the way elements/infusions are handled. Which, I saw you responded to someone else saying that it's likely they haven't received more love due to the infusions being tied to feats and Kineticist already having more feats than some other classes. I think that's fair, and you're probably right for that being why it hasn't seen any love. I still argue for...
You answered well, there is nothing offensive in your answer, you even understood my point, and I believe I understood yours too, I always wanted to point out that things are often not as bad as they seem, and that a certain class or build is often not among the worst that could be used. But rather that a lot of it can be due to a momentary lack of vision on our part or simply frustration.
I myself pointed out, I am quite frustrated with composite impulses, perhaps even more than I should be, but the fact that for me this type of impulses should have been designed considering the fact that it only works on builds with 2 specific elements for it or on mono builds with 2 levels of delay.
The other issue that bothers me is the issue of range and aura, especially on fire and air damage impulses, where basically they are the impulses with the longest range but which end up compromising the damage efficiency itself. For example, a good part of the fire kineticist's damage comes from the aura, but as many have said, the aura only increases from level 10 onwards. Until then, you're basically fighting melee with reach if you want to do as much damage as possible with your impulses. The same goes for air and Desert Wind. There's no point in the boomerang having a long range and good damage when used well with Desert Wind when you need to stay 10 feet away from the target, it loses its meaning. Things could even improve for fire at level 8 when the fire allows you to get Solar Detonation. The problem is that the designer added the incapacitation trait to it, meaning it doesn't work as a good alternative for single-target range, since bosses will probably only suffer half or nothing. But when I look at it in a larger context, I remember that this is not exclusive to the kineticist, with the exception of the magus, if the person wants to have relevant damage at long range they are forced to settle for a thrown weapon, that is, fight at a maximum of 20fts, at low levels even casters have problems fighting from a distance, the probably best spell for this is magic missiles force barrage, but it increases very poorly so the conjurer will only have some decent range when it gets fireball/lightning bolt at level 5 and look there because it will cast it few times a day, until it actually reaches level 9, only the druid with Combustion can get something relevant at level 6, but it still ends up being single target. There is also the Thunderstrike spell which is very good, but it is also single target and the difference in damage between the low level ranks is very large, limiting it to be efficient at top rank and consequently few times a day too. But the kineticist ends up having an advantage here, unlike the conjurers, it has the option of fighting well in melee, with a high defense, good HP and without taking reactions.
That's why for me the problems and frustrations of the kineticist, which appear in other classes to different degrees, in the end end up being easily compensated by his versatility with elements and fighting well up close, because he has a defensive power comparable to that of the martials. It doesn't change the fact that it is still limited in ranged damage, but it compensates well especially in situations where you wouldn't have much opportunity to fight at a distance like in small dungeons.
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Also, I'm not sure how metal is seen as a more defensive element. Its got a damage shield with its impulse junction but that's more offensive really and the other defensive impulses are level 12 and 14. Wood and earth are more straightforward defensively.
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Metal ends up being very good defensively because of the Metal Carapace + Shattershields + Alloy Flesh and Steel combo.
Metal Carapace because of Shield Block, which OK hinders the offensive part by having to raise it, but it is still a welcome damage reduction and you don't care if it breaks because on the next turn you can make another one with an action. The annoying thing about this impulse is that it dismantles everything in case of a critical failure, so you need to compensate with a high dexterity and light armor underneath to maintain your AC until the next turn.
Shattershields is a complicated case, because the rule doesn't say what happens if you use Shield Block together. Probably stick with the highest one, which is Shield Block. But the good thing about it is that it also protects allies in the aura.
And finally Alloy Flesh and Steel which provides a very high resistance to physical damage as well as immunity to death effects, disease, drained, fatigued, healing, nonlethal attacks, paralyzed, poison, sickened, vitality, and void and although there is an immunity to healing, as it is possible to stop the impulse and redo it without cost other than actions, if you need healing, it is a little more complicated, but you can stop sustaining, be healed and then cast the impulse again on the next turn. In addition, it Raises a Shield in the same Sustain action, which means that you can Raise a Shield with a free action because of the Effortless Impulse.
It has decent impulses but I'm not a huge fan of mono-metal because of its junctions.
I agree because it is as I said before it always fall into one of the 3 points that makes mono-element doesn't work:
Specialized/focused builds are common enough in games that actively support them.
To this happen one of 2 things need to happen:
Without one of these you always will be "forced" to take versatility instead.
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...Apologies for being late with my reply, forgot to check here for a couple days! Tried my best to skim the convo that happened after this post as well, but apologies if I say anything that was covered already and I missed it.
And here I return to a point I've made before. Yes, the kineticist has some bad or ugly feats. But this isn't exclusive to kineticists. All classes have this to some degree.
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And for me, the kineticist is the complete opposite in terms of chassis and available feats. He is much more solid and interesting. So when someone comes here to the forum complaining that he is full of "crap" feats, what immediately comes to my mind is 'is this guy serious? If he thinks that about the kineticist, then for him the other classes must be crap! There is no way that he is getting stuck in levels without having "good" options like what happens with many other classes, he must be doing something wrong, either he is underestimating the potential of some feats or he simply wants the class to be perfect, something that does not exist and is not realistic the way these classes are made'.Honestly? I agree with you for the most part here, too. I apologize if my original take made it sound like I was calling the Kineticist overall crap, because I definitely don't think that. And I am aware that all classes have similar issues where it feels like there's nothing good in certain sections, as well as the fact that "good" is subjective and there are people who will die by even the worst Spell/Feature/etc.
My main point was merely that Kineticist has the problem where it *feels* worse in certain situations than other classes, due to the way elements/infusions are handled. Which, I saw you responded to someone else saying that it's likely they haven't received more love due to the infusions being tied to feats and Kineticist already having more feats than some other classes. I think that's fair, and you're probably right for that being why it hasn't
Yeah like I said. 12 and 14. Pretty late to consider the element to be on the defensive side overall. The shield block is handy but the slow scaling means the damage you're blocking isn't as great as the extra AC from earth. Water even has a better defensive reaction than metal imo even if it can't block piercing.
But I am reminded of the remastered champion now. Here's another kineticist build with charisma. Multiclass champ for the shield blessing and apply runes to your metal carapace shield. Doable by 6th.
It scales close to a Reinforcing Rune when applied to a Steel Shield (the normal shield hardness of a champion using a steel shield) this damage reduction declines to about half-level so it isn't bad. Also the +2 AC with shield risen (+5 from medium armor +2 from shield AC) is the same of an Earth Kineticist with the +1 AC circumstance bonus (+6 from heavy armor +1 from Impulse Junction), there's no AC difference at all instead you got a shield block the big problem is the action cost, requires full investiment into Dex to not loose too much AC when the shield and the metal armor breaks due a critical.
But the action cost of rise a shield is solved whe you get Efortless Impulse + Alloy Flesh and Steel and adds the physical resistance to this damage reduction formula.
But I agree with remastered champion archetype with shield blessing (or the opposite a champion with kineticist dedication) is very strong applying runes to metal carapace shield. Even the Hardwood Armor that is 2 hardness less is pretty strong combination to those who prefer to not lose the AC bonus due a critical.
The other good point about the remastered champion archetype is that the dedication works like Sentinel. If you are proficient in light armor like kineticists you improve it to medium and sharing the light armor proficiency. So you don't have to invest in dex to keep an backup armor when the your metal armor breaks instead your medium armor will be your backup armor what means in practice that only your shield will break when you take a critical hit allowing to save some points to invest in cha and str.
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It scales close to a Reinforcing Rune when applied to a Steel Shield (the normal shield hardness of a champion using a steel shield) this damage reduction declines to about half-level so it isn't bad. Also the +2 AC with shield risen (+5 from medium armor +2 from shield AC) is the same of an Earth Kineticist with the +1 AC circumstance bonus (+6 from heavy armor +1 from Impulse Junction), there's no AC difference at all instead you got a shield block the big problem is the action cost, requires full investiment into Dex to not loose too much AC when the shield and the metal armor breaks due a critical.
But the action cost of rise a shield is solved whe you get Efortless Impulse + Alloy Flesh and Steel and adds the physical resistance to this damage reduction formula.
But I agree with remastered champion archetype with shield blessing (or the opposite a champion with kineticist dedication) is very strong applying runes to metal carapace shield. Even the Hardwood Armor that is 2 hardness less is pretty strong combination to those who prefer to not lose the AC bonus due a critical.
Assuming you're using the wood impulse junction, the lower hardness on the hardwood shield hardly matters with the fistful of temp hp you're also adding to the mix. You end up with more sustainability anyways, aside from maybe breaking your shield earlier from blocking.
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If you wanted to make the dwarfiest dwarf kineticist, obviously you want earth, but why not also metal (which Dwarves famously are talented at working with) or fire/wood which are things that are related to earth (go up to get wood, go down to get fire.)
Not saying you can't be a single element, but having a second element probably doesn't hurt the premise of your character.
Metal absolutely works thematically, but it doesn't give me anything I want.
Scrap Barricade is on theme, but Jagged Berms is better, so that's the one I will pick up with Elemental Overlap. (And don't mind the delay to 8, because I took Upset Balance at 6.)
All of the Earth Gate Junctions are fantastic for me (I've maxed Athletics) and since half my feats are going to Stalwart Defender, I'm not going below the top tier Earth feats anyway.
But to go back to the earlier points -- I do think being a single element, mono-classed Kineticist is fairly limiting. I just prefer to mix it up through multi-classing, rather than with multi-elements.
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There is a need for elements to have more functionality modes, especially for mono damage types.
Fire needs to be able to drop damage and replace it with control for when the targets are immune, or else they need a way to empower their non-fire attacks so that they're not such a sharp drop in damage.
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IMO, Paizo probably made a design consideration with the kineticist so that a mono-element character wasn't better (or even equal) in versatility than a character that branched into multiple elements.
As far as control options for a mono-fire kineticist, Blazing Wave knocks prone those that critically fail a save, Solar Detonation can dazzle or blind, Molten Wire (as mentioned, available through Elemental Overlap) imposes clumsy 1.
IMO, Paizo probably made a design consideration with the kineticist so that a mono-element character wasn't better (or even equal) in versatility than a character that branched into multiple elements.
As far as control options for a mono-fire kineticist, Blazing Wave knocks prone those that critically fail a save, Solar Detonation can dazzle or blind, Molten Wire (as mentioned, available through Elemental Overlap) imposes clumsy 1.
Fair, I think it's mostly a matter of disagreeing on where the middle should lie. In particular I'd love to be able to spend feats or other resources to be better at the alternative damage of a given element - like being able to go full reverse on fire to use Cold/Necrotic Solar Detonation with the aura boost. It leans into the fantasy of This is MY Element more while not doing much more than speccing into Water. The cost has to be there, but it would be nice.
What I found most bothersome when playing Kin was being so action-hungry. Because you can only remotely compete in overall impact by combining a 2-a impulse with a blast or stance (or using a 3-a impulse) on your turn, losing an action due to circumstance (having to move, being slowed etc) is comparably much worse than it would be for other classes.
This is true as well as the 3 action overflow impulses requiring a round to reactivate when they don't hit hard enough at higher level to justify this throttle on their use.
What I found most bothersome when playing Kin was being so action-hungry. Because you can only remotely compete in overall impact by combining a 2-a impulse with a blast or stance (or using a 3-a impulse) on your turn, losing an action due to circumstance (having to move, being slowed etc) is comparably much worse than it would be for other classes.This is true as well as the 3 action overflow impulses requiring a round to reactivate when they don't hit hard enough at higher level to justify this throttle on their use.
I think this is specifically why they get the free action channel at level 19. But like a lot of high level abilities, it might come at too late a level out of some sort of inherent conservatism from the design team, like how "fuse styles" used to be a capstone feat for the Monk.
What I found most bothersome when playing Kin was being so action-hungry. Because you can only remotely compete in overall impact by combining a 2-a impulse with a blast or stance (or using a 3-a impulse) on your turn, losing an action due to circumstance (having to move, being slowed etc) is comparably much worse than it would be for other classes.This is true as well as the 3 action overflow impulses requiring a round to reactivate when they don't hit hard enough at higher level to justify this throttle on their use.
In this point it reminds me a lot the magus, and in some degree some other classes like animist, bard, witch and the playtest necromancer and runesmith. Classes that have a strong use for its 3rd action and that also uses many 2-actions activities are strong but can be compromised if you need to use your actions due circumstantial situations. But IMO it's a fair trade off.
In this point it reminds me a lot the magus, and in some degree some other classes like animist, bard, witch and the playtest necromancer and runesmith. Classes that have a strong use for its 3rd action and that also uses many 2-actions activities are strong but can be compromised if you need to use your actions due circumstantial situations. But IMO it's a fair trade off.What I found most bothersome when playing Kin was being so action-hungry. Because you can only remotely compete in overall impact by combining a 2-a impulse with a blast or stance (or using a 3-a impulse) on your turn, losing an action due to circumstance (having to move, being slowed etc) is comparably much worse than it would be for other classes.This is true as well as the 3 action overflow impulses requiring a round to reactivate when they don't hit hard enough at higher level to justify this throttle on their use.
I don't agree as the Magus hits way harder for the trade off whereas the kineticist is made very weak by this mechanic because blasts are so we weak.
They allow you to blast when you activate the aura, but blasts do terrible damage. They are the worst. I stop using them usually after the first few levels because the feel so terrible to use.
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blasts do terrible damage. They are the worst. I stop using them usually after the first few levels because the feel so terrible to use.
I mean, Elemental Blasts are basically like using a crossbow without the whole "need to spend actions reloading" thing. The damage isn't *terrible* if it's a changeup sort of thing. Like if you use a 2-action impulse that's not overflow, it's "why not" damage.
blasts do terrible damage. They are the worst. I stop using them usually after the first few levels because the feel so terrible to use.I mean, Elemental Blasts are basically like using a crossbow without the whole "need to spend actions reloading" thing. The damage isn't *terrible* if it's a changeup sort of thing. Like if you use a 2-action impulse that's not overflow, it's "why not" damage.
I hate them. They feel terrible. I almost always activate a stance when I activate my aura. Stances go down when the aura goes down with overflow, so I have to activate them again when I activate the aura. Far better use of my actions.
I would have rather had the blasts do martial weapon damage and be customizable with runes. Using them feels like some throwaway ability you're using because you have nothing else.
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blasts do terrible damage. They are the worst. I stop using them usually after the first few levels because the feel so terrible to use.I mean, Elemental Blasts are basically like using a crossbow without the whole "need to spend actions reloading" thing. The damage isn't *terrible* if it's a changeup sort of thing. Like if you use a 2-action impulse that's not overflow, it's "why not" damage.I hate them. They feel terrible. I almost always activate a stance when I activate my aura. Stances go down when the aura goes down with overflow, so I have to activate them again when I activate the aura. Far better use of my actions.
I would have rather had the blasts do martial weapon damage and be customizable with runes. Using them feels like some throwaway ability you're using because you have nothing else.
But do you never use 2-action non-overflow impulses? There are plenty of good ones- Flying Flame, Timber Sentinel, Sand Snatcher, Tumbling Lumber, Molten Wire, Conductive Sphere, Ignite the Sun, Cyclonic Ascent, Furnace Form, Spike Skin, etc.
Some Kineticists will overflow somewhat infrequently, so the need to turn their auras back on is minimal.
In this point it reminds me a lot the magus, and in some degree some other classes like animist, bard, witch and the playtest necromancer and runesmith. Classes that have a strong use for its 3rd action and that also uses many 2-actions activities are strong but can be compromised if you need to use your actions due circumstantial situations. But IMO it's a fair trade off.What I found most bothersome when playing Kin was being so action-hungry. Because you can only remotely compete in overall impact by combining a 2-a impulse with a blast or stance (or using a 3-a impulse) on your turn, losing an action due to circumstance (having to move, being slowed etc) is comparably much worse than it would be for other classes.This is true as well as the 3 action overflow impulses requiring a round to reactivate when they don't hit hard enough at higher level to justify this throttle on their use.I don't agree as the Magus hits way harder for the trade off whereas the kineticist is made very weak by this mechanic because blasts are so we weak.
They allow you to blast when you activate the aura, but blasts do terrible damage. They are the worst. I stop using them usually after the first few levels because the feel so terrible to use.
I build one recently when I was playtesting necromancer and runesmith. My idea was to make a defensive focused sparkling targe magus multiclassing with champion. Defensively like I was predicted this build works well but offensively the action cost of move and Rise a Shield restricted my usage of my Spellstrikes way more than I imagined. The action hungry of play a class where its main activity requires 2+1 actions was way more difficult than I thought it would be even using conflux spells to compress the action economy. It is completely different from play has a starlit span magus turret that only moves if you have no choice.
About Elemental Blast IMO they are the kineticist subweapon. They won't be great but can be useful to complete your actions if you don't have something better to do.
blasts do terrible damage. They are the worst. I stop using them usually after the first few levels because the feel so terrible to use.I mean, Elemental Blasts are basically like using a crossbow without the whole "need to spend actions reloading" thing. The damage isn't *terrible* if it's a changeup sort of thing. Like if you use a 2-action impulse that's not overflow, it's "why not" damage.I hate them. They feel terrible. I almost always activate a stance when I activate my aura. Stances go down when the aura goes down with overflow, so I have to activate them again when I activate the aura. Far better use of my actions.
I would have rather had the blasts do martial weapon damage and be customizable with runes. Using them feels like some throwaway ability you're using because you have nothing else.
But do you never use 2-action non-overflow impulses? There are plenty of good ones- Flying Flame, Timber Sentinel, Sand Snatcher, Tumbling Lumber, Molten Wire, Conductive Sphere, Ignite the Sun, Cyclonic Ascent, Furnace Form, Spike Skin, etc.
Some Kineticists will overflow somewhat infrequently, so the need to turn their auras back on is minimal.
Problem Is, most offensive two actions non overload impulses are terrible. Flying flame Is literally cantrip damage, lumber thingy Is a literal meme that server no purpouse, Timber sentinel Is broken but It's not the average thing.
Spikeskin, fornace form etc are all setup, therefore you cast them Just once (preferrably outside of combat).The kineticist, especially Fire, needs to keep his cycle going, and that cycle almost Always requires an overflow
blasts do terrible damage. They are the worst. I stop using them usually after the first few levels because the feel so terrible to use.I mean, Elemental Blasts are basically like using a crossbow without the whole "need to spend actions reloading" thing. The damage isn't *terrible* if it's a changeup sort of thing. Like if you use a 2-action impulse that's not overflow, it's "why not" damage.I hate them. They feel terrible. I almost always activate a stance when I activate my aura. Stances go down when the aura goes down with overflow, so I have to activate them again when I activate the aura. Far better use of my actions.
I would have rather had the blasts do martial weapon damage and be customizable with runes. Using them feels like some throwaway ability you're using because you have nothing else.
But do you never use 2-action non-overflow impulses? There are plenty of good ones- Flying Flame, Timber Sentinel, Sand Snatcher, Tumbling Lumber, Molten Wire, Conductive Sphere, Ignite the Sun, Cyclonic Ascent, Furnace Form, Spike Skin, etc.
Some Kineticists will overflow somewhat infrequently, so the need to turn their auras back on is minimal.
Yep. That's what I stick to. I try anything other than using a blast. Blasts are what I use when I'm not in range or have nothing else to do but a blast. Kineticist blasts feel worse than cantrips.
Let's analise again.
On average:
So if managed well, prioritizing focus spells to save your spell slots, which are usually also used mainly by healing and occasionally utility spells, you can probably fight with average damage ranging from 28-49 all day long, without having to resort to using cantrips to deal damage.
However, both wizards and sorcerers have a much more fragile chassis, with fewer HP, lower AC, and only Will being a good save, which makes it difficult if you have to fight enemies in tight spaces like inside dungeons and buildings. The other point of complexity is that they don't have a well-defined use for the third action, which restricts it to Sustaining a spell you've cast, such as a floating flame (6d6/21 avg when used in a rank 5 slot) or a summoned creature, or shooting a weapon, such as a shortbow. But sustaining a spell with the third action basically locks you into 2-actions, forcing you to give up on it or not cast it in parallel if you need to move, while the weapon, in addition to requiring investment in runes at this level, will probably only cause 3d6 (a striking shortbow + an elemental rune) or nothing in case of a miss, but at least you can keep your third action free to move when necessary and can easily change targets (the floating flame is limited to moving 10 feet, which makes it very difficult to change targets that are not too close or even follow a moving target).
In other words, when his impulses and junctions are combined, the kineticist can achieve a very high average damage, on average even higher than that of many casters (even if we add the average of the sorcerer, who is the most sustainable using the Elemental Blast of focus + floating flame against a single target, it gives 33 + 21 = 54, it is still very close to what kineticists get, he only wins if he compares using top rank lightning bold, but then sustainability comes into question) especially if we consider that he does not spend any resources like the casters (but honestly this is also not a problem for an elemental sorcerer who uses his focus spells a lot). In addition, the kineticist has a much more robust chassis, with higher AC, almost double the HP, with a fortitude that becomes legendary and even the reflexes are much better than those of the casters, leaving only will as a weak point. What the kineticist really has as a disadvantage is his versatility, which is much lower (he has less than half the repertoire of a sorcerer, for example) and he cannot maintain DPR's efficiency at long range, only at short range, despite compensating for this with a much more robust chassis.