How does Kineticist's Safe Elements specifically work?

[PumpkinWaffle]

I understand the general purpose of the feat, and I know most people just designate all allies to be immune to drawbacks and that's it. However, looking at the feat text:

"When you Channel Elements or use a stance impulse that affects your kinetic aura, you can designate a number of creatures up to your Constitution modifier (minimum 1 creature). Choose whether they are immune to the benefits of your kinetic aura or immune to its damage and drawbacks."

It's not clear (to me, anyway) if you can designate a mix of allies and enemies at the same time, and individually choose who is immune to drawbacks and who is immune to benefits. Or is it just a bulk designation where all selected creatures need to have the same assigned status? This comes into play if you want to (for example) have a harmful stance up while also doing some AoE healing that might hit an enemy, etc.

[Blue Spruce]

It's "benefits or damage & drawbacks" all at once.

The language is "they" (as in 'all'), not "choose individually which are effected or not."

[Finoan]

I'm trying to find circumstances where it would make any practical difference. I can find one or maybe two, but if that is all, I don't know that we really need to sweat over this decision much.

The reason that there are so few circumstances where this would be important is because most of the things that affect your Kinetic Aura and the creatures in it are those Stance Impulses. And Stances are mutually exclusive. You can only have one active at a time.

So that leaves only the Aura Junctions that you can get. Of those, the only ones I see that are not already specific to enemies or allies is Water Junction and maybe Metal Junction.

Water Junction is giving all creatures in the Kinetic Aura fire resistance. And Metal Junction could affect allies if they are touching you with touch range healing or buff spells like 1-action Heal.

So is there a Stance Impulse that I am not remembering currently that affects both enemies and allies, and affects them differently such that you would want to include or exclude some of each?

Or, to ask this a different way: can you give an example of a practical situation where you would want to designate a mix of allies and enemies and choose separately for each whether they are affected or excluded by the Kinetic Aura?

[Finoan]

Oh: Addendum.

The only AoE healing that I know of in Kineticist is Torrent in the Blood, which isn't something that affects your Kinetic Aura anyway. You could still use Pacifying Infusion on it. But I am not sure what effect you are trying for here.

[PumpkinWaffle]

Finoan wrote:

Oh: Addendum.

The only AoE healing that I know of in Kineticist is Torrent in the Blood, which isn't something that affects your Kinetic Aura anyway. You could still use Pacifying Infusion on it. But I am not sure what effect you are trying for here.

Yes, Torrent in the Blood is actually what I was thinking of. So for example you couldn't put up Drifting Pollen with your allies excluded, and then the next round (for example) use Pacifying Infusion with Torrent in the Blood while excluding enemies. I know it's a niche case and you can just be careful with the aim of the cone anyway, so it was mostly a question out of curiosity. Thanks!

[Errenor]

PumpkinWaffle wrote:

Finoan wrote:

Oh: Addendum.

The only AoE healing that I know of in Kineticist is Torrent in the Blood, which isn't something that affects your Kinetic Aura anyway. You could still use Pacifying Infusion on it. But I am not sure what effect you are trying for here.

Yes, Torrent in the Blood is actually what I was thinking of. So for example you couldn't put up Drifting Pollen with your allies excluded, and then the next round (for example) use Pacifying Infusion with Torrent in the Blood while excluding enemies. I know it's a niche case and you can just be careful with the aim of the cone anyway, so it was mostly a question out of curiosity. Thanks!

Wow. You are right. It really looks like they for some reason linked Safe elements part which designates creatures for stance impulses and auras and Pacifying Infusion for all other completely different impulses you have. Yes, as written you can't designate creatures just with Pacifying Infusion every time you use it with some impulse. You need to use "Channel Elements or ... a stance impulse that affects your kinetic aura" and then the creatures you chose are locked, you can only use these with Pacifying Infusion: "you can exclude creatures you've designated with Safe Elements from its effects".