[PF] Occult Adventures Playtest is out!

[Raven777]

The Occult Adventures playtest (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/occultAdventuresPlaytest) is out!

I just skimmed it, and it looks cool as all getup. At first glance...

There's a Warlock (the Kineticist).
There's a Binder (the Medium).
There's a Beguiler (the Mesmer).
There's an Incarna-ish guy (the Occultist)
There's a Psion (the Psychic).
There's an Ardent / Summoner 2.0 (the Spiritualist)

[Vortenger]

I really hope that the Binder equivalent complements Radiant House's Occultist rather than supplanting it. That the Radiance Occultist author himself loves the coming book is a good sign, though.

[The Glyphstone]

Thoughts one by one...

Kineticist - Meh. It's a Warlock with even the Warlock's small amount of non-combat utility stripped away....so really, it's more of a Pathfinder Warmage, since literally the only thing it is capable of doing is blasting stuff.

Medium - this one is very, very cool. Definitely Binder-esque, but with a built-in limit that forces you to rotate out your spirit companions instead of just repeating the best combo over and over.

Mesmerist - Whether this is decent or sucky depends on if maintaining Hypnotic Stare takes a swift action every round, or just to initiate the effect.

Occultist - Not sure what to make of this.

Psychic - Whatever. Dreamscarred Press did it first and did it better.

Spiritualist - Not sure why this exists. It's a Summoner with built-on optional Synthesist abilities, but with a much weaker and less customizable Eidolon.

[Extra Anchovies]

First, the Kineticist looks awesome. I was expecting to open the book and be disappointed by the warlock-equivalent no longer having the otherworldly-powers fluff, but what they replaced it with is just as cool. The telekineticist's basic attack involves flinging unattended objects. And they're a Constitution-based caster! The burn effects seem like they'd get pretty brutal on long adventuring days, and since the damage scales with character level a Kineticist doesn't get any better at accepting burn as they level. Almost enough to turn me off the class, but not quite :smallbiggrin:

2+Int skills on a non-Int-based class always hurts, but they get Perception and UMD. For humans and those with (for some reason) high intelligence can also nab Intimidate and/or Stealth, too. For its size, the skill list is nice.

Glyphstone has a point about their not being capable of much other than direct damage, though. Can they do iteratives/full attacks with their blasts? The core ability description doesn't specific an action type, and all of the others say "You [do X to a target] as a ranged attack." To me, it seems like they can, but I'm unsure.

ETA: Unexpected downside to the book's current title is that in 3.P games we'll always be getting it mixed up with Oriental Adventures :smalltongue:

[Alent]

I guess with all the subsystem love that's been happening lately, Paizo themselves couldn't help but jump onboard.

Skimming through it now between calls, Their implementation of Warlock seems interesting, but not much else really appeals to me at a glance.

[Squirrel_Dude]

I'll have to check it out when i get home from work. I am hoping to be pleasantly surprised by what I find after that ACG playtest.

[Psyren]

Ooh, subsystems!

*waits for Occultist Handbook to start trending*



ETA: Unexpected downside to the book's current title is that in 3.P games we'll always be getting it mixed up with Oriental Adventures :smalltongue:

We can call it OcA.


Thoughts one by one...

Kineticist - Meh. It's a Warlock with even the Warlock's small amount of non-combat utility stripped away....so really, it's more of a Pathfinder Warmage, since literally the only thing it is capable of doing is blasting stuff.

Medium - this one is very, very cool. Definitely Binder-esque, but with a built-in limit that forces you to rotate out your spirit companions instead of just repeating the best combo over and over.

Mesmerist - Whether this is decent or sucky depends on if maintaining Hypnotic Stare takes a swift action every round, or just to initiate the effect.

Occultist - Not sure what to make of this.

Psychic - Whatever. Dreamscarred Press did it first and did it better.

Spiritualist - Not sure why this exists. It's a Summoner with built-on optional Synthesist abilities, but with a much weaker and less customizable Eidolon.

Agreed on Kineticist but I wouldn't write off the non-blasting utility just yet. They can fly (at least, Air, Fire and Aether can) and they do get some control abilities and some utility like tremorsense. And a Con/Dex based "caster" is just fun.

Medium I am not impressed with at all. Yeah the mechanic is cool but the spirit abilities look weak and you risk turning yourself into an NPC (temporarily, but still) if you dig too deep. You also have limited spells and no martial chassis to speak of. Pass.

Mesmerist is kinda a weird Mountebank/Jester thing? I guess? And no, as written the stare requires no action to maintain. I like that the Tricks let you implant your allies with a bunch of trap cards.

The psychic classes I will dive deeper on later but I like the flavor - and it's nice that they came up with a way to make all the magic spells feel "psychic". Spiritualist and Occultist seem to be comfortably in T3, Psychic is T2. (They brought back discipline-MAD... yay...) At least we can be happy that they haven't treaded on psionics' toes. I like the new T and E components.

[Roxxy]

I have only read Kineticist so far. Do like. Can be volcano mage now.

[Extra Anchovies]

Two questions regarding the Kinetic Defense ability granted to the Telekineticist:

Force Ward (Su): As an immediate action, you surround yourself with a shield of force powered by your telekinetic power. You gain a number of temporary hit points equal to your kineticist level. You always lose these temporary hit points first, before any other temporary hit points. If an attack fails to deal more damage than the remaining hit points in your force ward, it still reduces those temporary hit points but otherwise counts as a miss for the purpose of abilities that trigger on a hit or a miss. These temporary hit points regenerate at a rate of 1 per minute. By accepting 1 point of burn, you can increase the strength of your force ward by a number of temporary hit points equal to half your kineticist level until the next time you recover burn; this increase stacks with multiple uses. You can dismiss this effect as an immediate action, but otherwise it continues until you dismiss it.

Burn damage is equal to kineticist level. The temp HP from Force Ward is equal to kineticist level. The temp HP from Force Ward fully regenerates every 20 minutes. Thus, a Telekineticist can accept one point of burn per 20 minutes with virtually no ill effects. I hope this is something they overlooked, rather than an intentional workaround, because it's quite the exploit.

Also, couldn't you just spend two immediate actions to restore the temporary HP pool rather than waiting 20 minutes? That makes Telekineticist Burn-Cycling even more of an issue.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I'm quite fond of the Undercasting rule; it obviously works best as written with spontaneous casters, but it's so convenient. I wish it could get backported for normal casters to use.

[Raven777]

"Mediums are flexible and versatile, filling whatever role the party needs at the moment by channeling the right spirit."

Right now the Medium is kinda weak. The description implies it should be good at something different every day, but it ends up being bad at something different every day instead. I also think that the risk to turn yourself into an NPC for a day upon reaching Influence 4 is not exactly great for the game. Not a fan of Trance being a full round action in early levels. It should be Move or even Swift from the start. Basically, I find the class comes online to late. Early levels have a pretty big lack of options.

The rules on what effects you get depending on Alignment and Ability Score matches for secondary, tertiary and quaternary spirits also sound complicated to remember. Flowchart levels of complicated.

I still need to look up all the spirits to get a clearer idea.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

It appears to be based off the Harrow deck Paizo put out; it has 54 cards, each keyed to an ability score and alignment. The Mesmer looks fun; I know several people who will be excited to play a psychic Face. I love how it's buffs are literally tricking and exploiting their allies.

[Bluydee]

Also, check the official class discussions for Occult Adventures on the paizo forums. They have extra feats that are also being play tested.

[NightbringerGGZ]

Also, check the official class discussions for Occult Adventures on the paizo forums. They have extra feats that are also being play tested.

Mind sharing a link to the relevant post / thread?

[Psyren]

Mind sharing a link to the relevant post / thread?

The link in the OP will take you to all of them (e.g.: "General Discussion: Mesmerist.")

[NightbringerGGZ]

The link in the OP will take you to all of them (e.g.: "General Discussion: Mesmerist.")

I see, they're in individual threads. I was looking for a general "extra feats" thread. Thanks! :smalltongue:

[deuxhero]

I can see some of the names getting... confusing.

I like undercasting.

Oh boy! Ego Whip is back! Take THAT Charisma dumpers!

[Renegade Paladin]

Glyphstone has a point about their not being capable of much other than direct damage, though. Can they do iteratives/full attacks with their blasts? The core ability description doesn't specific an action type, and all of the others say "You [do X to a target] as a ranged attack." To me, it seems like they can, but I'm unsure.
If something doesn't specify an action type, it means a standard action. In this case, the Metakinesis ability spells out explicitly that the blast powers are standard actions when it differentiates between Quickened and non-Quickened powers in the bit about using two with one action (at 17th level).

[Extra Anchovies]

If something doesn't specify an action type, it means a standard action. In this case, the Metakinesis ability spells out explicitly that the blast powers are standard actions when it differentiates between Quickened and non-Quickened powers in the bit about using two with one action (at 17th level).

Oh. There goes about half of my interest in the Kineticist, since they're worse at damage dealing than the average volley archer by a long shot, and have to stay within 30 feet unless they're an Aerokineticist or they're willing to take Burn.

[Milo v3]

Three abilities into the Kineticist and my view went from "Oh cool, element benders." to "Noooo... don't use Wild Talent as the ability name. You're just gonna make confusion with 3.P games and DSP PF games..." :smallsigh:

[Extra Anchovies]

Something I just noticed, tucked away in a sidebar: the playtest doc only has 18 of the 54 Spirits available to the medium. It's going to have one for each card in the Harrow deck, which gives me a good idea for how to pick the day's selection of active spirits if I ever get around to playing one :smallbiggrin:

Also it means we really only are seeing one-third of the class. Not enough to pass a solid judgement, IMO.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Three abilities into the Kineticist and my view went from "Oh cool, element benders." to "Noooo... don't use Wild Talent as the ability name. You're just gonna make confusion with 3.P games and DSP PF games..." :smallsigh:

Pathfinder currently has two entirely separate abilities that can be placed on melee weapons called Dueling. There are several shamans and at least two skalds, two brawlers, and 2-3 swashbucklers. As much as I love their stuff, keeping up with names isn't really one of their strong suits.


Something I just noticed, tucked away in a sidebar: the playtest doc only has 18 of the 54 Spirits available to the medium. It's going to have one for each card in the Harrow deck, which gives me a good idea for how to pick the day's selection of active spirits if I ever get around to playing one :smallbiggrin:

Also it means we really only are seeing one-third of the class. Not enough to pass a solid judgement, IMO.

Heheheh... tempted to use my Harrow deck as an aid. Probably what they intended; wonder what it will be like if one were to play the Harrowing with a Medium?

[Extra Anchovies]

Heheheh... tempted to use my Harrow deck as an aid. Probably what they intended; wonder what it will be like if one were to play the Harrowing with a Medium?

I think they've been slowly pushing the Harrow pseudo-subsystem more and more lately. I think it's a good thing; I'm a fan of game developers coming up with something both easily adaptable and wholly new like that. (Yes, I know it's similar to Tarot cards, but they came up with their own deck arrangement rather than just telling us to use tarot/playing cards)

[Roxxy]

I really like the flavor of Kineticist, and I think that the class features can be modified into something great, but I do have issues. Mainly, the fact that you can't become a dual element user until level 7. That makes volcano mages and the like harder to do.

[Extra Anchovies]

I really like the flavor of Kineticist, and I think that the class features can be modified into something great, but I do have issues. Mainly, the fact that you can't become a dual element user until level 7. That makes volcano mages and the like harder to do.

Definitely agreed; I want my Steam Mage (water/fire, or if that doesn't work water/air) active from level 1. I hope there's a dual-element archetype.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Well, the Harrowing was a module based around the deck when it first came out. Lots of elements and characters from the deck (the Tyrant is the BBEG, you are challenged by the Prince... and he's an damn fey. Fortunately, I was playing a Hellknight...) It would be amusing meeting someone, then saying 'Oh! I called you up yesterday! How are you doing?'

[DerangedSquid]

Maybe I'm just misunderstanding something, but it looks like the Kineticist can get unlimited out of combat healing at level 1 by using a move action to reduce burn cost for a Wild Talent by 1 (as described under the Burn class feature) and then using Kintetic Healer on the same turn.

[Elricaltovilla]

I'm reading through the Kineticist right now, and much as I want to love it, I've got two major problems. The first is that its not clear what sort of action is used to make a kinetic blast. I'm specifically concerned about whether its a standard action or an "attack action" as the warlock's big issue was that he could only use his eldritch blast once per round, which sucked. My second issue is that I HATE the idea of a class which has to damage itself in order to use its abilities. I don't care if its only nonlethal damage, its just stupid.

[DerangedSquid]

Two questions regarding the Kinetic Defense ability granted to the Telekineticist:

Burn damage is equal to kineticist level. The temp HP from Force Ward is equal to kineticist level. The temp HP from Force Ward fully regenerates every 20 minutes. Thus, a Telekineticist can accept one point of burn per 20 minutes with virtually no ill effects. I hope this is something they overlooked, rather than an intentional workaround, because it's quite the exploit.

Also, couldn't you just spend two immediate actions to restore the temporary HP pool rather than waiting 20 minutes? That makes Telekineticist Burn-Cycling even more of an issue.

For the first question, I'm fairly certain that doesn't work as nonlethal damage doesn't work that way in pathfinder. Instead of subtracting from current hp it builds up separately, so having temporary hp wouldn't prevent burn from accumulating.

As for the second question, I don't see why you couldn't. I'd imagine they'll probably fix that sooner or later though.

[Extra Anchovies]

I'm reading through the Kineticist right now, and much as I want to love it, I've got two major problems. The first is that its not clear what sort of action is used to make a kinetic blast. I'm specifically concerned about whether its a standard action or an "attack action" as the warlock's big issue was that he could only use his eldritch blast once per round, which sucked. My second issue is that I HATE the idea of a class which has to damage itself in order to use its abilities. I don't care if its only nonlethal damage, its just stupid.

Kinetic Blast is a spell-like, which means it's a standard action.

Definitely agreed with you about the second issue, though. There needs to be a way to eliminate the nonlethal damage from burn. Otherwise a lot of the burn effects are not worth learning.


Maybe I'm just misunderstanding something, but it looks like the Kineticist can get unlimited out of combat healing at level 1 by using a move action to reduce burn cost for a Wild Talent by 1 (as described under the Burn class feature) and then using Kintetic Healer on the same turn.

Check the first post of this thread (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2rn8q&page=1?General-Discussion-Kineticist). The move action burn reduction only applies to the blast. Although kinetic healer heals damage equal to the blast damage, it isn't actually a blast. That change is a big nerf to a lot of the Talents, really.

[Hunter Noventa]

I've only looked over the Kineticist so far, and even then not totally. I agree that the Burn mechanic is extremely lame in that it can't be gotten rid of by anything but a full rest. Let magical healing do it's thing.

It's certainly not a bad concept for a class, even if it seems like the result of someone watching too much Avatar, but it needs a bit more utility. I'll still likely be using my Warlock update if I want to do something similarly blasty though.



EDIT: Okay so the Medium is a less customizable version of the Empath from Tome of Radiance. I wouldn't be able to resist calling out 'PERSONA!' when casting spells with it. Not necessarily a bad thing mind you, it's a good concept even if there are going to be a LOT of spirits to keep track of.

[Extra Anchovies]

I've only looked over the Kineticist so far, and even then not totally. I agree that the Burn mechanic is extremely lame in that it can't be gotten rid of by anything but a full rest. Let magical healing do it's thing.

It's certainly not a bad concept for a class, even if it seems like the result of someone watching too much Avatar, but it needs a bit more utility. I'll still likely be using my Warlock update if I want to do something similarly blasty though.

Agreed. I initially really liked it, then I got down into the nuts and bolts and saw only direct damage, and not particularly good direct damage at that. The non-touch ranged attacks A) will miss too often on a medium-BAB chassis and B) have no way to overcome most forms of DR1, while the ranged touch attacks A) are subject to energy resistance/immunity and B) have to get through spell resistance. The class is too swingy; with one attack a turn, often a combat round for a kineticist can boil down to roll, miss, end turn. Most of their abilities that increase damage to levels where the risk is worthwhile (such as the Composite Blasts) require the Kineticist to deal a scaling chunk of damage to themselves, which is another thing I dislike. It should be replaced by a mana pool of 1/2 class level + Con modifier, maybe with a method to gain more a la the Arcanist's Consume Spells; that could be where nonlethal damage comes in. As it is, HP are too precious a resource to take much in the way of burn. I'd only play it as-written if they had a d12 hit die.

You are also very right about lack of utility. All I see outside of direct damage effects/riders are senses enhancements (which are nice) and mobility enhancements (which would be nice, but they can't be extended to the rest of the party).

1: Yes, Rare Metal Infusion can overcome DR/cold iron, silver, or adamantine, but they still can't deal with alignment DR or DR/+X.

[Erik Vale]

Oh. There goes about half of my interest in the Kineticist, since they're worse at damage dealing than the average volley archer by a long shot, and have to stay within 30 feet unless they're an Aerokineticist or they're willing to take Burn.


Really? I'm dancing with joy. Have you heard about the conductive enchantment?
For +1, you can expend 2 uses of a su/spell that requires touch to have it effect the target you just hit.
And finally, there's a non-3P to use this all day, every day.
Depending on BaB, you may become a fan of splintercloud arrows instead of scatter firearms.

Edit: Ok, judging by this thread, how well could you make a archer with it given your loosing out on BAB for damage.

[Psyren]

I for one like the Burn mechanic. For a Con based class this is going to help keep it sufficiently squishy and ensures they can't go all out all day. They won't fall into the Warlock's trap of everything needing to be balanced around all-day usage and therefore milquetoast.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I like the idea. It's not as lethal as ability damage: I just wish there was some way besides resting to recover it. Hell, a caster level check to heal it with cure spells would be annoying, but better.

[Milo v3]

Considering most of the standard warlock stuff is 0 burn anyway, I don't really see much of a problem with it. The only issue I have with it is the whole Composite Blasts all having burn so I can't spam sandstorms and be gaara.

Also, the Liar's Spirit powers for Medium is probably the most depressing abilities I've seen.

[Sayt]

I like the Burn mechanic, I like the Feel the Burn mechanic rewarding you for taking burn. I do, however, feel like there should be some limited method of reducing burn.

Also, I have a Dwarven Terrakineticist in my head and it's pretty sick.

[Psyren]

Also, I have a Dwarven Terrakineticist in my head and it's pretty sick.

I'm imagining all the planetouched/genasi races doing this too (i.e. Oread, Sylph, Ifrit and Undine.) This is going to be so much fun.

I'd love a monk/kineticist PrC focused around martial arts and element bending. Or maybe just a kineticist archetype that gives you an unarmed combat focus.

[Extra Anchovies]

Also, the Liar's Spirit powers for Medium is probably the most depressing abilities I've seen.

Seconded. Are there any actual, you know, rules for infatuation or are they just tossing that word around and hoping for DM fiat?

[NightbringerGGZ]

I'm imagining all the planetouched/genasi races doing this too (i.e. Oread, Sylph, Ifrit and Undine.) This is going to be so much fun.

I'd love a monk/kineticist PrC focused around martial arts and element bending. Or maybe just a kineticist archetype that gives you an unarmed combat focus.

Mark has all but confirmed that one of the archetypes will focus on Kinetic Fist use. Quote: "Hmm...an archetype focused on Kinetic Fist...that also sounds like something that would be in-character for me to order. You guys may be good guessers."

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Marc also stated that the Burn's ability to reduce the burn can only be applied to blasts; no unlimited out of combat healing for us.

[Lord_Gareth]

So, wait. Undercast is reverse augmentation that rewards avoiding a "spell" until you can learn the higher level version. Does. Does anyone not see a problem there? Aside from the page space bloat from the ass-backwards approach?

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I don't see a problem. It allows you to upgrade, then swap out the old, lower-level spell for another one. I wish this could be backported somehow to work with other casters.

[CockroachTeaParty]

So, wait. Undercast is reverse augmentation that rewards avoiding a "spell" until you can learn the higher level version. Does. Does anyone not see a problem there? Aside from the page space bloat from the ass-backwards approach?

I believe the intent is for spontaneous casters to save on spells known. They can pick the lower level version when they first gain access to it, but instead of having to resort to metamagic, they can select the higher level version later in their career and free up their previous spells known. That's the key aspect: as soon as they learn a higher level version, they can replace the lower-level version with a new spell. They can still use their lower level spell slots to 'undercast' once their higher level slots are used up.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

... Are you guys even reading it? When you take the higher-level version, the lower-level version is automatically swapped out for a spell of the same level!

[Psyren]

Considering how much overlap there is between the Psychic list and the Sorcerer list, you have plenty of other things to do while you wait for those higher-level psychic-only spells to undercast, if you even want them. Plus you can take them at lower levels and then replace them with the higher level versions as you level up, in the same way that a sorcerer can swap out spells known. I don't see the big issue here.

I like the Psychic because, by using arcane spells as "psionics," they get something that plays differently than both a Sorcerer and a Psion but shares many of the same trappings. My one remaining issue is the detection problem, because the T and E components still don't reveal such a caster the way verbal components or Displays do. But you can incarcerate one via mundane means simply by putting him in an environment where it is hard to concentrate and intimidating them.

EDIT:


... Are you guys even reading it? When you take the higher-level version, the lower-level version is automatically swapped out for a spell of the same level!

In fairness that part is hard to spot but you're absolutely right.

"Whenever a spontaneous spellcaster adds a spell to his list of spells known that can be undercast, he can immediately learn a spell in place of any lower level versions of that spell. In essence he “loses” the earlier version and can replace it with another spell of the same level that is on his spell list."

That should address Gareth's design concern.

[Hunter Noventa]

I like the Burn mechanic, I like the Feel the Burn mechanic rewarding you for taking burn. I do, however, feel like there should be some limited method of reducing burn.

Also, I have a Dwarven Terrakineticist in my head and it's pretty sick.

I was just thinking that perhaps a good solution might be a small, scaling pool of 'Free' Burn each day that doesn't cause the nonlethal damage. You can go beyond it and take the nonlethal burn damage of course, but this way you aren't actively penalized EVERY time you use your class abilities. Though I have no idea how big this pool should be. Kineticist Level + Con Mod? 1/2 level + Con Mod?

Feats or Magic Items also seem like a good place to put in Burn Reducers.

I've looked over the other classes briefly, and it's a little odd that the rest just seem to be different ways to vary/prepare a spell list, with flavored mechanics attached, not entirely new mechanics like the Kineticist.

[Milo v3]

Seconded. Are there any actual, you know, rules for infatuation or are they just tossing that word around and hoping for DM fiat?

The first ability in the Liar states who counts as infatuated.

[Extra Anchovies]

The first ability in the Liar states who counts as infatuated.

Oh, I missed that in my cursory skim. It's still an awful ability set.

[Gemini476]

Thoughts as I read (note that I'm not that familiar with Pathfinder, and this is by no means a guide or review - it's literally just my first impressions):
Burn: Kineticists would absolutely love getting Accelerate (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/variant-magic-rules/words-of-power/effect-words/accelerate)cast on them. (Also, Wild Talents, "lose the energy in a wild surge", wow.)
The burn limit of CON+3 makes sense, since you take (level) nonlethal per point of burn and you have (level)*(CON+4.5) HP.
Also, do you bypass the burn/round limit if you lower the burn cost?

Feel the Burn: +1/3 levels bonus to attack and damage makes the class kind of like 13/12 progression which is pretty alright I guess. I don't know how often you're likely to take burn yet, but a single point by level three would be three nonlethal damage so that's doable.

Metakinesis: 1 point of burn for +1,75 damage/2 CL, 2 points to increase it by +2,5 damage/2 CL, 3 points to use it as a swift action, 4 points to shoot twice with one action. Looks mildly useful, I guess, although I don't know how often you'd actually use them. Eleven points of burn will get you four attacks/turn if you're a crazy person and want to do a 1/day nova. Empower+Maximize might do more damage, depending on your blast - +4,25 beats an extra 1d6, but loses to a 1d6+1 and loses additional rider effects.

Metakinetic Master: Empower is tempting, since it makes it all free, but the others might also be good choices.
Simple blast: 1d6+1 damage/2 levels is decentish - although it averages out to a bit worse than 1d4/level so I hope there's some more ways to increase that. It also requires there to be some unattended objects nearby, which could get annoying. Especially since the object also takes damage.
I was thinking about using this to draw items to you jedi-style, but that would probably break your lightsaber at higher levels. Maybe invest in an adamantium marble or something.
This could get fun with splash weapons, though.

Defense: Wild talents are at-will, right? Couldn't you just use an immediate action to regain the temporary HP rather than wait 1 minute/point?
Also, stacking it with burn doesn't look like it's worth it. You're taking your level in nonlethal and only getting half your level in temporary hp out of it.
Although if you can use the burn-reducing move action with this it's totally worth it. I suspect that you can't, though.

Oh hey, so that's why you use it! You lose out on total HP, but since it regenerates it's maybe better long-term. Maybe. I'd need to do some math on it, especially since the "healing" of the Force Ward is so slow.

Wild Talents:
1st
Kinetic Cover - at-will ranged Tower Shields. What's the duration on this? Could you just keep spamming it to create an invisible labyrinth?
Kinetic Healer - With the move-action burn cost reduction from the Burn (Ex) class feature, this is limitless out-of-combat healing. Am I reading this wrong? (pre-posting edit: apparently it's going to be limited to blasts and infusions?)
Light Touch - at-will buffed-up Mage Hand. Lets you act like a Jedi in less violent ways.
Pushing Infusion - bullrush those you hit with your blast 5ft, using CON rather than STR. This sounds like it's not really worth it, although I don't really know what you can do with bullrushes in Pathfinder. (Incidentally, this is worse than the very similar ability the 5e Warlock gets. That one just auto-pushes... 10ft, I think? The 5e Warlock is great.)
Telekinetic Finesse - ranged sleight of hand and disable device. It was good when the Shadowcaster had it, and looks decent enough now.

4th
Foe Throw - Introduces another point of failure for the opportunity to damage two enemies. Might also be useful for transporting party members to hard-to-reach places - throw 'em at something hard to hit, miss, and they get to choose where they land.
Self Telekinesis - continous use allows for some facsimile of flight. Can also be used for auto-succeeding on certain jumps.
Telekinetic Haul - mage hand and telekinetic blast with items weighing in at up to 100lbs./CL. If you can't see the use of that then I don't know what the world has come to. (Darth Vader was clearly a Telekineticist, by the way.)
Touchsight - Not terribly useful, but lets you see invisible things as long as you can keep hitting them.

6th
Force Barrier - creates a Wall of Force around your square as a standard action. I'm not all too sure how to use this, to be honest. I guess the burn-to-prolong thing is to stop AoOs and let you use other standard actions, but I'm not too sure when I'd even want to trap myself like that in the first place. Could you use your blast from inside it, perhaps? That could be worth it.
Self Telekinesis (Greater) - You can pretty much fly. Except it's not really flight, it's just you janking yourself 60ft in whatever direction as a move action and hovering telekinetically.
Telekinetic Maneuver - combat maneuvers as per Telekinesis, using your Con in place of Int. Oh, and you can add Steal and Dirty Trick (both using Dex instead) if you have Telekinetic Finesse. Sounds like it could be pretty useful, although you'd need o find ways around balooning CMDs.

9th
Many Throw - take four burn to make attacks against a number of targets equal to your Kineticist level. That sounds pretty decent, actually.

Simple Blast: 1d6+1 bludgeoning (SR:No) ranged attack, or 1d6 electricity (SR:Yes) ranged touch attack. The simple fact of the Electric Blast being Touch makes it probably the better choice in the long run, although for the early game Air will probably do more damage.

Defense: 20% miss chance (+5%/5 levels) from ranged weapons is useful, I suppose. Although, again, I must ask if this Wild Talent qualifies for the burn discount move action. Probably not.
Archers will hate you once you have burn to spare, though. Five burn should bring you to 75% by level 20.

Wild Talents:
For some reason, Aether lists these by "spell level" and Air lists them by minimum Kineticist level.

1st
Air Cushion - Continous Feather Fall. Take that, Monk!
Air's Reach - Double range for air effects. Apparently Air is the long-ranged element? It's a reason to not take Electric Blast, I suppose.
Pressurized Blast Infusion - Ranged bullrush. It's the exact same as Pushing Infusion, except for non-solid blasts. Looks like it might also not work for Electric, but that's alright because Bull Rushing someone 5ft just doesn't seem worth 1 burn to me.

6th
Engulfing Winds - You lose your miss chance to make a Wind Wall. If you're only up against bolts and arrows, this seems very much worth it.
Magnetic Infusion - Burn 2 to put a debuff that's pretty much -4 to AC for a round. That seems pretty good, truth to be told. Especially since you apply it with a touch attack blast. You need to have a party that's actually using metal weapons for it to be useful, though - a Soulknife, Druid and Summoner won't be able to take much advantage of it.
Torrent - Air blast, half damage, reflex for yet another half, but it hits all foes in a 30ft line. 60ft if you got Air's Reach, maybe. Could be worth it if you pile on debuffs, but that's not a lot of damage. Also burn 2, just because.
Windsight - Seeing through fog and mist is useful, if slightly situational. Being able to see stuff as if you were a number of feet downwind equal to the wind's mph is really weird but also neat. I don't know how useful it'll be before you get effects that let you affect the wind, but yeah.
Wings of Air - You are constantly flying. This is good, obviously. Oh yeah, and Air Cushion is a prerequisite so you also have Feather Fall active. I'm seeing the Aerokineticist as a kind of sniper, flying far above while shooting longe-ranged blasts and having miss chance vs. ranged weapons. It could work.

10th
Chain Lightning - Your electric blast can jump to more people, with each one requiring a new touch attack (hah!) and taking 1d6 less damage. This is pretty good, obviously, and probably the most reliable multi-target effect I've seen for 10th level Kineticsts so far. 3 Burn, though. (You'll be doing 5d6 damage by level 10, for reference.)
Cyclone - Half damage, reflex yet another half, 20ft radius burst centred on you, 3 burn. I'm still not too sure if these half-damage AoE effects are worth it. I guess they do auto-hit everything without Evasion, though, so if you get good rider effects on your blast it'd be good.
Kinetic Form - at-will Elemental Body I, minus the whirlwind. Burn 2 and all your uses this day are instead Elemental Body II. So you get Fly 60ft(perfect), +2 Dexterity and Natural Armor, and Darkvision 60ft. EB2 gets you an extra +2 Dex +1 NA. Pretty good. If you're starting at this level, you might want to take this over Wings of Air.
Ride the Blast - You pretty much teleport to the target of your blast. 0 Burn. I kind of spoiled myself whilst scrolling through for these various effects, in that I know that this combines with Air's Reach and Extreme Range to give you what amounts to a at-will line-of-effect standard action 960ft teleport. Aerokineticists are most certainly the most mobile of the two types I've looked at so far. It's also fairly cool by itself, although I'm not too sure why you would want to actually be adjacent to one of your targets if you used it in a more conventional sense.
Spark of Life - at-will SM4 for Air Elementals, scaling one spell level every two levels. Even the mindless move-action-eating ones seem pretty useful, to be honest.
Wind Manipulator - at-will Control Winds that lasts as long as you use a standard action OR 10 min/level if you take a point of burn. Remember Windsight? This is pretty great in general, though, especially since you could bring this up to Severe Winds from level 10 onwards.

16th
Cloud - 20ft radius cloud within 120ft, when you create it it does 1/4th damage (no save), entering the cloud or ending your turn in it deals 1/2 damage, and it also acts as Obscuring Mist. Oh yeah, and it lasts for CON rounds or until you use it again. It seems pretty good, to be honest! I'm not entirely sure if it can be used with Air Blast, though, since that's not an Associated Blast?
Kinetic Form (Greater) - as Kinetic Form, except Elemental Body III and IV. Might be worth it,
Weather Master - at-will Control Weather, although limited to wind unless you grab Expanded Element to add fire or water to it. This means that you can create tornadoes and hurricane-force winds. You could probably do so soon with Control Winds as well, but still. This is pretty cool.
Simple Blast: Ranged attack for bludgouning, piercing, or slashing damage. I suppose it lets you selectively get through DR.

Defense: DR 1/adamantine. Or, more properly, DR (level/2)/adamantine. Which you can boost point-for-point with Burn, to a maximum of your level. Seems like it could be somewhat useful up until Adamantine weaponry gets common (or opponents start using single hard hits).
Also, while DR 20/Adamantine sounds pretty hilarious you've also got 100 nonlethal damage by that point.

Wild Talents:
1st
Kinetic Cover - See Telekineticist.
Pushing Infusion - See Telekineticist.

6th
Earth Climb - climb speed on earth and stone. Useful, although given that the Aerokineticist is flying around maybe not perfect. Will not work on metal or wood, so stick to rennaisance towns and dungeons for your parkour.
Entangling Infusion - one shot entangles for a minute (although they can try to get out as a standard action) and then a second shot immobilizes. This is the kind of debuff that I wanted to see for those auto-hitting Air AoEs. It's pretty good. Reflex negates, but yeah. Burn 2 kind of hurts when you want repeated use.
Impale - deal damage in a 30ft line, although it stops short if you fail to hit/damage one enemy. Multiattacks sound good, so I'd consider taking it. It costs 2 burn, though.
Jagged Flesh - burn 1, and until the next time you recover burn everything that attacks you takes 1d6 damage. This goes for weapons rather than wielders, though. Personally I don't think it's that worth it?
Magnetic Infusion - See Aerokineticist. Although if you get a metal blast then this combines very nicely with Impale...
Move Earth - standard action to move 5ft cubes of earth or unworked stone and reshape them. You are a dungeonbuster. Also, a castle-builder. People will flock to you before a seige. This is ridiculously useful, even if the need for "unworked" stone limits it a bit.
Rare Metal Infusion - lets your metal blast (we'll get to it soonish) turn into other, DR-bypassing metals. It crumbles away afterwards, though.
Tremorsense - spend a move action to gain Tremorsense 30 while on earth or stone, detected enemy do not get concealment or miss chance vs. your earth blasts.

10th
Earth Glide - you get an earth elemental's Earth Glide ability. This is good, although you'll need to use Move Earth if you want your party to follow you. (Staying within a wall and using Tremorsense to fling Earth Blasts at people may or may not work - I'm pretty sure you'd lack a line-of-effect.)
Kinetic Form - See Aerokineticist, except you become an Earth Elemental instead and lack Earth Glide.
Ride the Blast - See Aerokineticist, is what I want to say, except note that you have half the range with Earth Blast. No really crazy teleporting shenanigans, although you can still get out of a jail cell by blasting through the window and aiming at a roof. Or by blasting through a wall with Impale.
Spark of Life - See Aerokineticist.

16th
Kinetic Form (Greater) - See Aerokineticist.
Sharding - 120ft range 20ft radius burst centered on the target. If you miss, nothing happens, but if you hit then the target take full damage and everyone else in the burst needs to roll a reflex save or suffer half that damage. (A successful save halves the damage yet again, as is apparently a pattern in AoE Wild Talents.)
Overall the Terrakineticist seems like it's maybe meant for more melee, up close-and-personal characters. It also lacks native flight, which is a bit annoying. Going by what I've glanced so far, I think Earth and Water might be the only ones that don't get some kind of approximation of flight that isn't Ride the Blast followed by quick and repeated prayer.
Then again, this one also has some ridiculous utility from a few of the abilities. Move Earth is love. Move Earth is life.
Hope you weren't attached to the 3.5 PrC.

Simple Blast: ranged touch attack, which is nice, for fire damage, which is less nice. I guess spell resistance applies to the blasts that do energy damage while the ones that do bludgeoning/piercing/slashing get away with it because of the Conjuration(Creation) clause?

Defense: this is the Terrakineticist's Jagged Flesh on steroids. I suddenly want to make a guy who grapples people for the automatic 12d6/turn. We haven't even gotten into the Wild Talent's yet, technically, and this is already amazing.

Wild Talents:1st
Burning Infusion - Burn 1 for your blast to ignite the people it hits. It's only 1d6 damage/turn and DOT is not very great in D&D, but I guess I could see some uses for this. Might be worth using your 5th-level Infusion Specialization to add this to all your blasts for free - free damage is free damage, after all.
Fire Sculptor - You can move CL 5ft squares of fire to adjacent squares. Useful if your party is stuck in a burning building or something, I suppose, although that's probably going to be a pretty niche situation unless you go put the "pyro" in "pyrokineticist". Like by, for instance, constantly using Burning Infusion. Whoops. Most of the time this probably isn't worth taking if you've got a better option, though. (Although I suppose you could use it to slowly-but-surely lead a large fire to somewhere else, like a not-burning building.)

6th
Firesight - this obligatory elemental sight lets you look through fire and smoke as if it were transparent. Burning creatures and creatures with the fire subtype cannot get concealment against you. Somewhat niche, unless you go full pyromaniac. Or you're in the City of Brass.
Flame Jet - see the Telekineticist's Self Telekinesis and imagine that he's Iron Man instead of Jean Grey.

10th
Flame Jet (Greater) - see the Telekineticist's Self Telekinesis (Greater) and imagine that he's Iron Man instead of Jean Grey.
Flame Shield - burn 1 to boost your Searing Flesh defensive talent so that it deals 1 damage/2 levels to everyone who attacks you with a non-reach melee weapon. In addition to the usual effects. You also only take half damage from cold, although 2*CL cold damage ends the effect early. Sounds moderately useful, overall.
Kinetic Form - see the Aerokineticist, except substitute for fire elementals as necessary. Also, you actually get the Burn ability and thus people attacking you must save or light on fire.
Ride the Blast - see the Aerokineticist.
Spark of Life - see the Aerokineticist, except fire elementals.
Trail of Flames - when you Withdraw or Run, you can leave a Wall of Fire behind you. Going 88mph is not neccessary. This is pretty cool, although given that it only sticks around for one round I wonder how useful it's going to be. Do note that it'll also hurt you unless you have fire resistance, since it's in all squares you leave and you end your turn next to it. This could be pretty fun for partitioning off enemies.

16th
Explosion - Create an explosion within 120ft, the radius is between 5 and 20ft. Everyone in it takes full blast damage, which is unusual for AoE infusions, and can make a reflex save for half damage. The save DC is also dex-based for some reason. This is basically an at-will Fireball, I guess? You take 4 burn.
Kinetic Form (Greater) - See the Aerokineticist, I guess.
Pure Flame Infusion - this only works with blue fire, which is one of the composite blasts I've yet to get to. It makes your blast SR:No. Also, Burn 4. Well, Burn 5 since Blue Fire costs 1 as well after Composite Specialization. You can get it down to 4 if you Specialize in Pure Flame Infusion as well, but you might want to save that for something else maybe?
I'm not really sure what the Pyrokineticist is going for. There's the "you don't want to hit me cause I'm on fire" thing, yeah, which I guess makes some manner of sense given the low range of the blast. Your utility is even sparser than the Terrakineticist, being mostly limited to lighting things on fire, flying around on a pillar of flame, and maybe moving fires around. That's not a lot. Oh yeah, and you can summon elementals which can be pretty useful for trapchecking after level 10.
Simple Blasts: A ranged touch attack for cold damage or a ranged attack for slightly more bludgeoning damage. I'd take the ice blast, usually, but if the water has enough talents focused on it (like air did for the aerokineticist) then it might be a contender I guess.

Defense: +4 armor bonus to AC or +2 shield bonus, changeable at-will as a standard action. Scales +1 per 4 levels beyond 2nd. Pretty decent, although you'd maybe mostly get use out of it for the two-handed Burn-reducing. You'll probably want to pick up some kind of magic armor later anyway if you insist on staying close.

Wild Talents
1st
Icewalker - immunity to slippery surfaces and seasickness. More specifically, wet and icy surfaces that call for an acrobatics check. Somewhat niche ability, I think, if it weren't for the direct link to a later ability.
Kinetic Cover - see Telekinecist
Kinetic Healer - see Telekinecist
Pressurized Blast Infusion - see Aerokinesist
Slick - at-will Grease. That Icewalker makes you immune to. This is an ability, yeah. You need burn to prolong the duration, but still.

6th
Entangling Infusion - see Terrakinecist
Impale - see Terrakinecist
Torrent - see Aerokinecist
Water Manipulator - Control Water. At-will. That you can move water with and slow water-based enemies with. This is a pretty powerful ability. There's a bit of a limit on it, true, in that you need either Burn or standard actions to keep it going, but a Hydrokineticist would be a terror in any naval campaign.
Waterdancer - you get a constant Slipstream (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/slipstream)effect. You can now surf around, swim as you wish, walk surf on water... Naval campaigns, huh. This also increases your move speed on land, but yeah.
Watersense - tremorsense 30ft which lets you detect things touching the same body of water you are, creatures you detect cannot get any benefit from concealment against your water blasts.

10th
Chilling Infusion - burn 3, but considering that it's fort save or stagger for 1 round it seems kind of worth it? It's for cold damage.
Ice Path - you get constant Air Walk, except you're Frozone. The icy path lasts for a round, so it kind of looks like you could have your party follow you on your slippery bridge? The question is, of course - does the entire path fall down once the ice at the start of it melts, or can you just kind of Frozone around freezing a path in midair?
Kinetic Form - see Aerokinecist
Ride the Blast - see Aerokinecist
Shimmering Mirage - your defensive ability gives 20% miss chance. You need to pay a burn to get this, but it lasts until you next recover burn so it's pretty darn good.
Spark of Life - see Aerokinecist
Spray - 30ft cone, half damage (reflex halves) strikes yet again. Oh yeah, and Burn 3. Dex-based save for some reason.
Waterdancer (Greater) - you can Water Walk at will and breathe underwater, and your slashing and bludgoining attacks don't suffer underwater penalties. Wait, did your water blast suffer penalties before this?

16th
Cloud - see Aerokinecist
Kinetic Form (Greater) - see Aerokinecist
Sharding - see Terrakinecist

Overall the Aerokineticist's stuff seems pretty useful, although even moreso in a naval campaign. If you're not going to be near mass amounts of water it's not all that useful to be able to walk on it and breath it, for instance.
1st
Extended Range - 1 burn to increase the range to 120ft. If you really wanted to fix your range issues, you could just choose this as your 5th-level Infusion Specialization and be done with it. (Or take a move action beforehand.)
Kinetic Blade - Eldritch Glaive, from the looks of it. I think "it interacts with AC [...] as normal for a blast of its type" means that a Fire Blast would be a touch attack, yes? And you can full attack with this, making this probably the easiest way I can think of to get multiple attacks with your blasts. Burn 1, so get your specialization pointed in its general direction. Although you probably can't get reach, unless there's some light or one-handed reach weapons like the Kusarigama was in 3.5. Could Telekinesis get a two-handed weapon for superior power attack and such, or a double weapon for two-weapon-fighting? psuedoEDIT: the scorpion whip is a light exotic reach weapon.
Kinetic Fist - This seems like Monk-types getting screwed over again, in a way. You get a third of your damage dice with KB added to your unarmed strikes, and I'm not really sure if the multiple attacks would make up for it when compared to Kinetic Blade. Also burn 1, but that's mitigatable if you're after that archetype.

6th
Extreme Range - burn 2 for 480ft range. When combined with Air's Reach it becomes 960ft. It is glorious. I'm just a bit sad that it's a Form Infusion and thus you can't combine your magic sniper rifle with the big explosions.
Kinetic Whip - Kinetic Blade, except it's a reach weapon and you threaten squares the turn after. If you wanted a 3.5 Pyrokineticist, this seems similar. Also, Burn 2.
Snaking - you can aimbot with your 120ft range and shoot around corners and whatnot. Burn 2, but whatever. This is really really neat. Also, it gives Windsight some use for spotting.

7th
Expanded Defense - get an extra defense from another element that you have selected with Expanded Element. Want both the DR of Earth and the temporary HP of Aether? This is your jam.
Expanded Element - you can get this once at 7th and another time at 15th. Choose one element - you get additional options for your blast (I'll look into the composite blasts in a minute) and can take wild talents to do with the secondary element as if they were one tier higher (you get access to what they'd ordinarily get at 6th level at 10th level instead, for instance.)

16th
Reverse Shift - So at-will Ethereal Jaunt, I guess. The Monk is deeply jealous, since it's starting to look like you have access to most of the big monky things. Stay there for CL rounds consecutively, paying 1 burn for every CL rounds thereafter, and you can't go back until the rounds have "recharged".
You know all composite blasts whose prerequisites you meet, which is pretty nice. I think all of these are Burn 2, but I'll mention any that aren't.

Aetheric Boost - Aether - add +1/die damage. At 15th level, you can add this to other composite blasts. This seems pretty weak, I guess, but if you pick up Expanded Element(Aether) for whatever reason (telekinesis!) you'll get this for free. I'm pretty sure this is just plain worse than Empower, actually.
Blizzard Blast - air blast + cold blast - this pretty much just combines the blasts into one 1d6+1+1d6+1 base monster. Although half of that is cold and the other is bludgeoning.
Blue Flame Blast - Fire - 2d6 base ranged touch attack
Charged Water Blast - electric blast + water blast - 1d6+1+1d6+1
Force Blast - Aether - does the same damage as usual telekinetic blast, except doesn't require ammo, deals force damage, and is a touch attack. Pretty snazzy.
Ice Blast - Water - 1d6+1+1d6+1
Magma Blast - earth blast + fire blast - 1d6+1+1d6+1
Metal Blast - Earth - 2d6+2
Mud Blast - earth blast + water blast - 2d6+2
Plasma Blast - air blast + fire blast - 1d6+1+1d6+1
Sandstorm Blast - air blast + earth blast - 2d6+2
Steam Blast - fire blast + water blast - 1d6+1+1d6+1
Thunderstorm Blast - Air - 1d6+1+1d6+1

This means that once you get a method to lower the burn a bit - Composite specialization at level 15, for instance, combined with the standard move action - you can be throwing out 1d6/CL blasts at-will. Or 1d6+1/CL, but given that the only touch attack is Blue Flame I'd go for that.

Overall I quite like the Kineticist, although it doesn't quite seem as versatile as the Warlock was. There's far too many abilities that are only in-combat.
The blasting capability is pretty great, though. Nowhere near something like a crossblooded Orc/Draconic sorcerer wordcaster, but at-will 1d6/CL abilities are nothing to sneeze at. Well, not too much at least.

Oh yeah, and since I didn't mention the capstone (I was going to wait until after I read the talents, but then the hours passed) I'll mention it now. It's pretty neat, although given how there's a lot of things competing for your Burn I'm not too sure how much use it'd get. Always having the right Composite Blast/Simple Blast at hand could be useful, I suppose. Also, being able to swap around your Simple Blasts/Defenses for 24 hours (not until your burn resets, but actually 24 hours) seems pretty useful.

The Infusion Specializations come online at levels 5, 8, 11, 14 and 17 (and 20, technically, if text trumps table). That means 1 1st level, 1 6th level, 2 10th level and 1 16th level Infusions are able to be lowered by a point. I'd recommend lowering them to just 1 point, since you can move-action it down to 0, although for stuff like Kinetic Blade I'd bring it down to 0 just so you can glaivelock all day long without worrying. I'd need to see how Burn works out in actual play before judging much - it's basically a pretty big Ki pool or something similar, except it ups your threshold for when you get knocked unconscious.

Also, reading a bit from the thread, yeah Conductive looks crazy good for this.

I'll continue reading/commenting on the rest of the book tomorrow, I think. The spellchecker died halfway through this post, and I need some rest.

[UmpteenthDoctor]

I wonder how kineticist and kineticist (psion) would work together both on a team or gestalt.

[Axebird]

@Gemini

Infusion Specialization cuts the cost of all talents in either the form or substance categories, not individual talents one at a time.

[Extra Anchovies]

I wonder how kineticist and kineticist (psion) would work together both on a team or gestalt.

Or Radiance House Occultist/OcA Occultist, or Medium (witch archetype)/OcA Medium, or OcA Psychic/Psychic Bloodline Sorcerer, or Spiritualist (investigator archetype)/OcA Spiritualist. Only the Mesmerist hasn't been done before, actually.

[Milo v3]

Is there anything Occultists can actually do with their binding circles.....? :smallconfused:

Edit: Also, mesmerist, occultist, and spiritualist seem inspired by the classes of the same names from d20 modern....

[Gemini476]

@Gemini

Infusion Specialization cuts the cost of all talents in either the form or substance categories, not individual talents one at a time.
Oh wow, I missed that. Would Form or Substance be better, then? I'm leaning towards Form, if only because there's just more of them and multitargeting really helps with the damage deficit. A mix would probably be good unless you really need those expensive high-level infusions, though.

So move action burn mitigation plus Blue Flame Explosion at level sixteen for at-will 16d6 Fireballs, I guess. Although something like Cloud Blizzard might actually do more damage. Chilling Cloud Blizzard Blast would cost a point of burn at level seventeen, but seems pretty good. Extended Range and the like being free means that you don't need to put your increasingly squishy character near the action.

At least burn means that you're by far the most likely PC to be captured alive rather than be killed in the heat of battle.

I'll reiterate, though - a Kineticist would love having a Wordcaster buff him with Accelerate. An extra move action per turn means an extra point of burn that can be avoided.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this - the Kineticist is Con-primary and Dex-secondary. Not just because of ranged attacks, mind you, since there's a handful of form infusions that use Dex to determine the DC. The best race is probably going to be whichever one reduces burn or gives you Wild Talents as a FCB, but until we know that any Con-boosting race will probably do. Hobgoblins get bonuses to both attributes and look alrightish.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I'm hoping that the elemental races (Sylph, Undine, Oread, and Ifrit) get an unholy buff for kineticist to replace their mostly-useless racial ability.

[Erik Vale]

Two (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/story-feats/unforgotten-story)Useful (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/achievement-feats/endure-pain-zon-kuthon-s-kiss)feats.

Unforgotten potentially ways you down and has RP requirements, but it's one less damage [and depending on application order, you may be able to get away with less specilization], and boosting a poor save, and if successful, all saves... But you may loose the damage reduction. Endure Pain halves the damage [potentially nullifying it, depending on application order] making things easier, and the save is tiny for what you're using it for... Also helps when the GM tries to capture you.

Outside of that, Invulnrable Barbarian should reduce burn, and has good HD, which is nice for dipping/Gestalt.

Also, shouldn't Air's Reach apply to Kinetic Blade/Fist/Whip?
Combine such with lunge or other reach increasers, good dex, combat reflexes, and have fun. [Lunge+Base=10ft, Reach from whip brings to 20ft, Air's Reach doubles to 40ft. You can attack all within that area, and use for AOOs. Add in Combat Patrol and you can get up to 100ft reach... However by that point you will be running out of attacks, though you'll get to laugh at anything trying to charge you as you pimp slap it while dancing sideways from further than most things can charge... Not action compatable, silly me. Build up for Trip and you could lockdown medium-large rooms.
Edit: Funnier idea for the whip? Something big charging? Slap if across the face several times before tripping it just outside of it's reach. Extra benifits if you can sneak into a Mythic game for Mythic combat Reflexes, which has no limit to AOOs performable.
Extra Edit: 40ft reach Whirlwind attack + 40ft reach and combat reflexes. You now have abbsolutely no problem with swarms of little things.


Oh, and as mentioned with is possibly applying to Kinetic Fists, you now have reach punches/natural attacks. Load up.

[killem2]

I am just happy for this because my GM doesn't allow 3rd party stuff. I allow dreamscarred press, but after this I go to using it to keep all our sessions on the same page.

[Rogue Eidolon]

Thanks for the in-depth thoughts Gemini476! I hope you'll have time to playtest the kineticist and post about your experiences.

[Psyren]

Thanks for the in-depth thoughts Gemini476! I hope you'll have time to playtest the kineticist and post about your experiences.

Oh hey, welcome!

Are you behind Psychic Magic? Because honestly I am really getting a good vibe from it, especially given how it's able to be its own thing separate from psionics both fluff- and mechanics-wise but can still be effective. (Though right now I'm really only grokking the Psychic.)

[Ssalarn]

Rogue Eidolon is Mark Seifter, the newest member of the Paizo design team and the guy behind the Kineticist.

Also, let me add how cool it is to see a member of the Paizo design team swinging by and being known on GitP!

[Rogue Eidolon]

Oh hey, welcome!

Are you behind Psychic Magic? Because honestly I am really getting a good vibe from it, especially given how it's able to be its own thing separate from psionics both fluff- and mechanics-wise but can still be effective. (Though right now I'm really only grokking the Psychic.)

The kineticist, and also the medium, are my babies, and I helped with parts of other things.

[Lord_Gareth]

The kineticist, and also the medium, are my babies, and I helped with parts of other things.

Welcome Marc. You may find that folks here have a greater grasp of system mastery than the...official...forums. They've certainly been a great help to me.

[Rogue Eidolon]

Welcome Marc. You may find that folks here have a greater grasp of system mastery than the...official...forums. They've certainly been a great help to me.

I have found that every forum has different kinds of system mastery that predominate. Generally, they are all solid, even if they contradict each other. It's because different games have different "metas", so it's possible to both be right. That said, it helps to have as many perspectives and metas in play as possible for a playtest, and I'm glad you've found mastery and advice that fit perfectly with your game's meta!

[Elricaltovilla]

The kineticist, and also the medium, are my babies, and I helped with parts of other things.

If you don't mind my asking, what was the reasoning for the burn mechanic? Specifically the nonlethal damage. It seems the intent was to put a limit on the number of times you can use the more powerful abilities, but since there's already a limit on the total amount of burn you can have, why the additional risk of nonlethal damage?

[Rogue Eidolon]

If you don't mind my asking, what was the reasoning for the burn mechanic? Specifically the nonlethal damage. It seems the intent was to put a limit on the number of times you can use the more powerful abilities, but since there's already a limit on the total amount of burn you can have, why the additional risk of nonlethal damage?

It's a different feel of playing and resource management. The kineticist usually does what she can to spend 0 burn in most situations. If she pulls out something that costs burn, she's getting serious, and it really means something. It's a little different than say, a magus, who probably spends an arcane pool point for extra weapon bennies in most fights.

EDIT: That's also why she has a lot of ways to reduce the burn of blasts. There is a tightrope balance of what blasts can be free at what times. The difference between 0 and 1 is hugely significant to the kineticist, much more so than the difference between 1 and 2.

[Psyren]

Rogue Eidolon is Mark Seifter, the newest member of the Paizo design team and the guy behind the Kineticist.

I know :smalltongue: I was asking what else he worked on besides Kineticist (and now I have that answer.)


I have found that every forum has different kinds of system mastery that predominate. Generally, they are all solid, even if they contradict each other. It's because different games have different "metas", so it's possible to both be right. That said, it helps to have as many perspectives and metas in play as possible for a playtest, and I'm glad you've found mastery and advice that fit perfectly with your game's meta!

Precisely. And the best products take as many into account as possible.


It's a different feel of playing and resource management. The kineticist usually does what she can to spend 0 burn in most situations. If she pulls out something that costs burn, she's getting serious, and it really means something. It's a little different than say, a magus, who probably spends an arcane pool point for extra weapon bennies in most fights.

EDIT: That's also why she has a lot of ways to reduce the burn of blasts. There is a tightrope balance of what blasts can be free at what times. The difference between 0 and 1 is hugely significant to the kineticist, much more so than the difference between 1 and 2.

Yeah, this is definitely how I envisioned it - kind of like a warlock that can Overchannel or Body Fuel when he/she needs some oomph... or maybe like how 4e psionics worked with a bunch of at-wills that can be boosted using a daily resource.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Question, can a creature that is the target of kinetic healing make a save if they don't want the burn, and shrug off both the healing and the burn? Because it could be used offensively, to give a target HD=unhealable non-lethal. It's not big, but its still a valid tactic if something is, say, immune to your element.

[Powerdork]

It's cool that you got into Paizo, Mr. Seifter, but I have to ask: Why, if psychic magic is not psionics, does it take naming elements from psionics?

[Taveena]

I'm EXCITED. Kineticist seems like a really well-designed, fun class - even if the inspiration for it is rather blatant - but y'know what? I'm okay with that.

Currently my only real thoughts are that Pyrokineticists seems to be a bit shafted - sure, ignoring spell resistance eventually is great, but it's going to be nasty in the interim before they get that, and they have the most common resistance type in the game to overcome!

... Though one thing was a bit unclear. When using Kinetic Blade or Whip, as you're forming it as part of the attack action, can you form two and TWF with them?

[Psyren]

Pyro and Hydro may have to deal with SR, but the upside is that they don't have to worry about DR, while the other three do.

[Extra Anchovies]

I'm EXCITED. Kineticist seems like a really well-designed, fun class - even if the inspiration for it is rather blatant - but y'know what? I'm okay with that.

Currently my only real thoughts are that Pyrokineticists seems to be a bit shafted - sure, ignoring spell resistance eventually is great, but it's going to be nasty in the interim before they get that, and they have the most common resistance type in the game to overcome!

... Though one thing was a bit unclear. When using Kinetic Blade or Whip, as you're forming it as part of the attack action, can you form two and TWF with them?

They can form light weapons, and there's no stated duration, so by RAW it looks like you can. And it also passes the rule of cool test :smalltongue:


Pyro and Hydro may have to deal with SR, but the upside is that they don't have to worry about DR, while the other three do.

And that's why, from a versatility-of-damage perspective, Air and Water are best: they both have an SR-yes energy attack vs touch AC and a mundane-damage SR-no attack against regular AC. Electricity has a slight edge to due electricity resistance being less common than cold resistance, but it doesn't get to benefit from the cold vulnerability that many fire-immune beasties have.

[Thealtruistorc]

Out of curiousity, what was the reasoning behind the title "occult adventures"? Psychic magic does not seem to have the most occult feel to it in my opinion, so I was curious to see why you synthesized the two concepts,

[Rogue Eidolon]

Out of curiousity, what was the reasoning behind the title "occult adventures"? Psychic magic does not seem to have the most occult feel to it in my opinion, so I was curious to see why you synthesized the two concepts,

We actually have two experts in Victorian-era occultism (Erik Mona and Brandon Hodge) who have been injecting us with knowledge on the topic. I started out exactly like you altruist orc, where I was scratching my head, but the more Erik and Brandon showed me, the more I realized that in fact that occultism is the origin for many of our modern conceptions about psychic phenomenon. So, it's sort of more "old school" in a really old school way. We'll talk about it a bunch in the chapter for running occult games, and we hope to give you a really great sense of "the Occult" and how to inject it into your games as much as you want, either a little or a lot.

[Gemini476]

Also, both Fire Blast and Blue Fire are touch attacks. That counts for a lot.

You could also grab Expanded Element at level 7 to grab Cold Blast or whatever if you want to branch out a bit.

I'm thinking that making some kind of Pyromancer grappler with a light weapon Kinetic Blade might be interesting. You're dealing something along the lines of 76d6+1 1/2 CON fire damage to someone if you manage to grapple them.
Of course, that's dependant on making a Kineticist into a grappler which seems like it could be pretty tricky to do. Maybe just trying to go reach with a scorpion whip and making the opponent afraid of attacking you because of the mass amounts of fire damage would be enough. Maybe.


Thanks for the in-depth thoughts Gemini476! I hope you'll have time to playtest the kineticist and post about your experiences.
Why thank you! Unfortunately I'm unlikely to actually get a chance to playtest it beyond theorycrafting and math, since I don't have a group for Pathfinder games until Christmas at the earliest - and then there's a bunch of other games that we'd be interested in playing as well, so playtesting would have hard competition for our time.

I'll try to work my way through the rest of the document, though. I'm writing up the Medium right now, and it's kind of a weird class in some ways? It's definitely interesting. I don't know how powerful it actually is, though.

[deuxhero]

7 is way too late for dual element to come online from a quick look. Working with a single energy type (or physical damage with no means of bypassing non-magic non-type DR) for 6 levels means you'll be useless a lot of the time

[Tulya]

7 is way too late for dual element to come online from a quick look. Working with a single energy type (or physical damage with no means of bypassing non-magic non-type DR) for 6 levels means you'll be useless a lot of the time

The Kineticist has negligible mandatory equipment costs, no scribing costs, and UMD as a class skill. While it certainly won't excel at encounters where its blast ability is neutralized, it's not going to be without options.

Additionally, while not all GM's will do so, a simpler casting subsystems encourage GM's to reward creative usage of abilities, such as terrain interactions. A pyrokineticist might attempt to fell trees to cause obstructions, start a blaze to capitalize on Firesight with a ranged weapon, etc. when fighting an opponent immune to its direct fiery blasts.

[Extra Anchovies]

The Kineticist has negligible mandatory equipment costs, no scribing costs, and UMD as a class skill.

I'd like to contest that first point. They're an average-BAB class with a typed-damage standard-action attack. Sure, they're making touch attacks, but the one attack per round still makes them really swingy, and they have to resort to the normal-AC attacks when faced with energy-resistant monsters or foes with high SR, and the normal-AC attacks are subject to DR. They are practically begging for a to-hit item (bracers or gloves, probably).

[facelessminion]

Rogue, I am quite interested in the Kineticist, but am a bit concerned about a damage dropoff happening sooner rather than later for them. Is there any chance at all that the RAI for their blasts might involve them being able to use them as ranged, incremental attacks, instead of standards?

[Extra Anchovies]

Rogue, I am quite interested in the Kineticist, but am a bit concerned about a damage dropoff happening sooner rather than later for them. Is there any chance at all that the RAI for their blasts might involve them being able to use them as ranged, incremental attacks, instead of standards?

Spell-likes are standard actions unless otherwise noted; Mark Seifter (or, on our forum, Rogue Eidolon) clarified that the blasts are standard actions in this post in the paizo thread. (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2rn8q&page=2?General-Discussion-Kineticist#74)

[Milo v3]

I'm abit disappointed there is no blood bending, and there isn't really any large-area high level effects like using fire to raise the temperature of a whole region or anything.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I believe they are saving that for an archetype; blood ending, at least.

[facelessminion]

It's a different feel of playing and resource management. The kineticist usually does what she can to spend 0 burn in most situations. If she pulls out something that costs burn, she's getting serious, and it really means something. It's a little different than say, a magus, who probably spends an arcane pool point for extra weapon bennies in most fights.

EDIT: That's also why she has a lot of ways to reduce the burn of blasts. There is a tightrope balance of what blasts can be free at what times. The difference between 0 and 1 is hugely significant to the kineticist, much more so than the difference between 1 and 2.


While I can appreciate the idea behind the burn mechanic, I don't know if I find deliberately limiting such fun resources to be particularly entertaining. It more or less puts your total for the really interesting abilities at one or two a day, which doesn't seem all that great to me. What if your Force Ward was able to be used to absorb burn for you, giving you potentially one 'free' point of burn in a combat encounter in exchange for your shield?

Additionally, I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that though you can take more burn as you level, you never get more good at taking burn as you level. In the end, with the way that it's all based on incurable HP damage, you're really only able to take as many points of burn at level 20 as you are at level 1. It feels like there should perhaps be cutoffs built in that reduce the HP damage that burn represents. It feels more that the burn should be 1/2 their level instead of 1/level.

But that could potentially be mitigated by moving them up a rung, HP wise. Given the way that they are trading their HP in exchange for power, and are only an attacking class, it feels like they wouldn't be out of place at all being a full BAB, d10 HD class. While Feel the Burn is potentially nice, the fact that they aren't able to use enhancement bonuses from weapons means that it's already having to take the place of that instead. Additionally, chasiss-wise, the class is really begging for at least 4+int skill points.

I'd also put their dual blast ability earlier in the class, as pretty much no game ever gets to level 17, and sucking HP for the moments you need excessive damage feels like something that would be nice around 12 or so, since they can't get incremental attacks.

Overall, I adore the class, I just feel it could definitely use some tweaks. Putting it as a full-BAB class, with 4 skill points, would actually help deal with quite a few of the issues I see with it.

[Drackstin]

i just want to make a kitsume Mesmer with CON evil and Cha evil, i hope they give them a good favored class skill.

[Jurai]

Occult Adventures is the first supplement that's made me want to play PF more than 3.5

[Milo v3]

Additionally, I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that though you can take more burn as you level, you never get more good at taking burn as you level.

I believe that's represented by the class abilities that reduce burn.

[NamelessNPC]

Why do you guys think that this playtest has generated way less excitement than the ACG? Maybe that's just my impression, but going by number of posts (here and at paizo) there are a lot lesa comments. Do yo think the classes are "worse" or more boring?

[Lord_Gareth]

Why do you guys think that this playtest has generated way less excitement than the ACG? Maybe that's just my impression, but going by number of posts (here and at paizo) there are a lot lesa comments. Do yo think the classes are "worse" or more boring?

At least part of it is that we got burned on ACG, which was handled exceedingly poorly with only a few specific exceptions (Stephen was pretty cool), followed by the book publishing in a highly unfinished and frankly shameful state.

[NightbringerGGZ]

Why do you guys think that this playtest has generated way less excitement than the ACG? Maybe that's just my impression, but going by number of posts (here and at paizo) there are a lot lesa comments. Do yo think the classes are "worse" or more boring?

It seems to me like many people are still absorbing all the new classes from the ACG. That's quite a few classes to add into our adventures and plan for. Another large set this soon is a lot to take in.

I also agree with Lord Garth's opinion on how the ACG game out. That's a book riddled with mistakes and in desperate need of a re-print. I'm also not terribly impressed with how several of the classes turned out.

I would note that the Kineticist is getting a TON of attention right now as well. I'm focusing a bit more on the Mesmerist in the playtest I'm putting together and plan to pick one more class to fiddle around with. I really wish we had more options for most of these classes though.

Btw, I can't seem to get the point of "Under Casting". The example provided mentions you burn the higher level spell slot and none of the new spells listed really indicate a good reason to undercast them.

[Ssalarn]

It seems to me like many people are still absorbing all the new classes from the ACG. That's quite a few classes to add into our adventures and plan for. Another large set this soon is a lot to take in.

I also agree with Lord Garth's opinion on how the ACG game out. That's a book riddled with mistakes and in desperate need of a re-print. I'm also not terribly impressed with how several of the classes turned out.

I would note that the Kineticist is getting a TON of attention right now as well. I'm focusing a bit more on the Mesmerist in the playtest I'm putting together and plan to pick one more class to fiddle around with. I really wish we had more options for most of these classes though.

Btw, I can't seem to get the point of "Under Casting". The example provided mentions you burn the higher level spell slot and none of the new spells listed really indicate a good reason to undercast them.

As I understand Undercasting, it's supposed to be reverse Augmentation. Basically, if you know Mind Thrust IX, then you also automatically know Mind Thrust I - VIII (and if you took any of the earlier iterations, you can swap them out for another same level spell when you gain the next version) and can spend those lower level slots to cast it while preserving your higher slots. I don't think you're actually supposed to spend the higher level slot.

[NightbringerGGZ]

As I understand Undercasting, it's supposed to be reverse Augmentation. Basically, if you know Mind Thrust IX, then you also automatically know Mind Thrust I - VIII (and if you took any of the earlier iterations, you can swap them out for another same level spell when you gain the next version) and can spend those lower level slots to cast it while preserving your higher slots. I don't think you're actually supposed to spend the higher level slot.

That would make sense, and in that case it's a great system. It's this line that makes the system not work though: "If he casts it as ego whip I, it is treated in all ways as that spell; using the text for that spell, the saving throw DC, and requiring him to expend a 3rd-level spell slot."

[Erik Vale]

The Kineticist has negligible mandatory equipment costs, no scribing costs, and UMD as a class skill. While it certainly won't excel at encounters where its blast ability is neutralized, it's not going to be without options.

Wrong. If they want to keep up with the damage output at higher levels, they're going to need to get a channelling weapon.
If they're going to keep up with hitting things [be it with said weapon or not], they're going to need to enchant said weapon [and we know how expensive that is] and/or buy other to hit boosters.

Endurance is awesome. But most fights last under a minute.

[Milo v3]

That would make sense, and in that case it's a great system. It's this line that makes the system not work though: "If he casts it as ego whip I, it is treated in all ways as that spell; using the text for that spell, the saving throw DC, and requiring him to expend a 3rd-level spell slot."

Ego Whip 1 is a third level spell, so it does work.

[Psyren]

It seems to me like many people are still absorbing all the new classes from the ACG. That's quite a few classes to add into our adventures and plan for. Another large set this soon is a lot to take in.

I also agree with Lord Garth's opinion on how the ACG game out. That's a book riddled with mistakes and in desperate need of a re-print. I'm also not terribly impressed with how several of the classes turned out.

Yeah, I'd say it's a combination of these two. Really, these kinds of large releases should be staggered more. I think they're getting a bit too hot under the collar due to 5e and developing/releasing things too quickly as a result as if to say "we're still here! Don't leave!"

Anyway, that aside, I had some questions on the Psychic - I posted them to the Paizo forums but I'll share them with you guys too:

Psychic Questions

- What is the saving throw DC for supernatural Psychic Discipline abilities that allow saves, e.g. the Pain discipline's Agonizing Wound? What about the ones that mimic spells, such as Tranquility discipline's Calming Presence SLA?

- What action is it to activate Phrenic Amplifications? Is it part of casting the spell, a swift action, a free action, what? (For example, what action is needed to use Intense Focus or Conjured Armor?)

- Does Complex Countermeasure make your psychic spells harder to dispel and counter? Does it make them harder to identify with Spellcraft?

- Can you choose whether or not to use your Wis/Cha mod for Conjured Armor? As written, if you reach 8th level but have less than 14 in either stat, the AC bonus this grants will actually go down.

- Can Coaxing Spell be used with Psychic Magic? Can Psychics use Metamagic Rods?

- What happens if the SLA from Remade Self is dispelled? Can it be reinstated? Does that happen on its own or must the ability be retrained?

- As written, a "dark half" Abomination Psychic can't ever change back on her own because she cannot make the concentration check to dismiss Dark Half. Please add this to the abilities that a Psychic can concentrate on while in dark half mode.

- Can a Lore Psychic use Illuminating Answer as many times per day as they have divinations to cast?

- Can Automatic Writing be combined with Illuminating Answer?

- How close to you does an ally have to be to benefit from the Tranquility discipline's Mental Placidity?

- What kinds of prestige classes can Psychics qualify for? Does it have to be a PrC where the type of casting (arcane or divine) is not specified, similar to the Shadowcaster from 3.5? Could a Psychic qualify for Pathfinder Savant?

Psychic Magic questions:

- How can Psychic Spells be identified by other casters while being cast if they have no verbal/somatic components and no Displays? Can an invisible Psychic be noticed at all?

- How do touch spells like Bull's Strength work without somatic components? If a Psychic casts such a spell while paralyzed, what happens?

- Is Mind Thrust intended to be mind-affecting? Right now it isn't.

Also the designer chimed in and said that Psychics will be getting more toys, particularly in the summoning and DD arenas, so yay for that.

[NightbringerGGZ]

- How can Psychic Spells be identified by other casters while being cast if they have no verbal/somatic components and no Displays? Can an invisible Psychic be noticed at all?

I saw an answer to this in one of the threads (I think Mark/Rogue Eidolon responded). The response was that it is similar to SLA's, there's always some sort of indication that magic is about to happen even without the V or S components.

[Squirrel_Dude]

It seems to me like many people are still absorbing all the new classes from the ACG. That's quite a few classes to add into our adventures and plan for. Another large set this soon is a lot to take in.

I also agree with Lord Garth's opinion on how the ACG game out. That's a book riddled with mistakes and in desperate need of a re-print. I'm also not terribly impressed with how several of the classes turned out.For me it's because

A) The ACG was an exhausting and awful experience when i took part in the playtest. I focused on the Warpriest, so some of that was probably my fault. That class needed (needs?) so much damn work, and it was a pain arguing with people who thought sacred weapon, as it was initially printed, was a super great mechanic because... ya know what, not going back down that rabbit hole. I didn't enjoy it, simple as that.

B) Path of War just came out, and I'm still coming to grips with that system because I want to be able to use it

C) DSP is also playtesting 4 other things right now. Veilweaving, Tzocatl: The First Language, and I believe something to do with different races. Oh, and Path of War Expanded.

D) I'm trying to pick up Shadowrun 5e at the moment, too.

E) There have been some really "fun" FAQs coming down from the Paizo Dev team recently.

F) The NBA is back! Go Mavs!

My attention is a little split. I haven't even been able to pay attention to 5e, and have just had to tell myself to not care about that game until a proper DMG is out (even though I'm not paying nearly enough attention to know when that will be).

[Taveena]

Still holding out hope for more out-of-combat utility for the Kineticist. As their main stat modifies no skill checks, their main things are sequence breaking and unloading 20d6+con damage six times a round.

Great lockdown tanks, though, and if substance infusions proc on CMB checks with the weapon then Improved Trip + Entangling Infusion makes a build with it a lot of fun.

[Drackstin]

C) DSP is also playtesting 4 other things right now. Veilweaving, Tzocatl: The First Language, and I believe something to do with different races. Oh, and Path of War Expanded. .

bloodforge

[Squirrel_Dude]

bloodforgeYep, that's it. Danke.

[Psyren]

Sweet, the designer answered most of my questions. (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2rn8v&page=3?General-Discussion-Psychic#126) And there's a good chance they are adding in specific provisions for certain PrCs (Similar to how Shadowcaster can get into MT.) They're also adding in more psychic spells, specifically some form of summoning and more blasting. Can't wait for v2 :smallsmile:

[Raven777]

This thread (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2rogn?My-feedback-Make-it-all-simpler) makes me sad. Don't the Binder and Radiance House's Occultist also offer a large wealth of different vestiges to bind? Nobody freaked out over these. Hearing these people, choice is too complicated so it shouldn't exist. :smallconfused:

[Psyren]

Eh, his post only got two likes. I think we're okay.

I do however think Paizo is putting out too many big class splats back to back. It might be an attempt to hit the xmas rush but we used to have more time between releases like these. IIRC there was nearly a whole year between the APG and Ultimate Magic.

[Extra Anchovies]

Eh, his post only got two likes. I think we're okay.

I do however think Paizo is putting out too many big class splats back to back. It might be an attempt to hit the xmas rush but we used to have more time between releases like these. IIRC there was nearly a whole year between the APG and Ultimate Magic.

Well, OcA is due out next summer, putting a year between ACG and OcA. Unless you're saying that there was a year between the APG release and UM playtest, in which case your point stands.

[Psyren]

Well, OcA is due out next summer, putting a year between ACG and OcA. Unless you're saying that there was a year between the APG release and UM playtest, in which case your point stands.

Is it? I hope so. There didn't seem like much time between the ACG playtest and release but I could easily be misremembering.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Well, OcA is due out next summer, putting a year between ACG and OcA. Unless you're saying that there was a year between the APG release and UM playtest, in which case your point stands.Ultimate Magic also had the grand total of a single class. The Advanced Class Guide and Occult Adventures will introduce 10 and 6 new classes, respectively. Before these two books, there were only 21 base classes (counting alternate classes) released by Paizo. They'll be almost doubling that in the span of a 1 1/2 years.


Is it? I hope so. There didn't seem like much time between the ACG playtest and release but I could easily be misremembering. You're slightly misremembering. The ACG playtest started like a week before Thanksgiving, or a date slightly early. It was close enough that lead to scheduling conflict fun times, and basically a lost week during the playtest.

[Milo v3]

Anyone know what the role of the Spiritualist class is? It's a pet class, but the pet can't really deal damage. It gets medium BAB but only simple weapons and scythes and no decent combat abilities. It's spellcasting is lackluster.

The section about what it's role is was filled with rather useless information IMO and I have no idea what it's meant to do.

[Raven777]

After some pondering, they do have a point. Not on the fact that there are too many spirits, but on the fact that the Medium's cross binding mechanics are complicated to Sacred Geometry levels of asinine. Calculating what you get from each Spirit depending on Ability and Alignment is a tangled mess.

I'll also concede that for Spirits I would much prefer if their availability was tiered and they had a visible power curve, à la Binder. This would help both making initial selection less overwhelming and justifying more powerful or unique effects on later spirits.

Finally, they're right that the penalty for reaching Influence 4 literally being loosing control of your character is good for neither DMs nor players. This is a dumb mechanic.

[Extra Anchovies]

I'll also concede that for Spirits I would much prefer if their availability was tiered and they had a visible power curve, à la Binder. This would help both making initial selection less overwhelming and justifying more powerful or unique effects on later spirits.

Yes, definitely. They suffer from the same problem that MoI (or the upcoming Akashic Mysteries) does; namely, that all of the options are available from level 1.

[Psyren]

Anyone know what the role of the Spiritualist class is? It's a pet class, but the pet can't really deal damage. It gets medium BAB but only simple weapons and scythes and no decent combat abilities. It's spellcasting is lackluster.

The section about what it's role is was filled with rather useless information IMO and I have no idea what it's meant to do.

Spiritualist is what the Dread should have been :smalltongue: Indeed, Spiritualist with Fear Phantom does most of what the Dread is designed to do but has a lot of other toys to play with.

But less facetiously, they are a summoner-lite - they get an outsider called a Phantom to run around with them inside their head, and they can pop it out to fight for them. Like the summoner, their job is to hang back and make things easier for the pet, and like the summoner, they can funnel their own HP to it when it is in trouble. Because they're psychic though, it can be easier for them to hide/act innocent while the phantom is fighting or rummaging through the drawers (or alternatively, throw on armor and go flank with it.)

The spell list is kinda underwhelming at the moment though. They don't seem to get anything discounted, and while that might be a good thing after the Summoner, they also aren't getting any neat spell economy toys like the Bloodrager did to make up for the lack of discounts.

[Milo v3]

Spiritualist is what the Dread should have been :smalltongue: Indeed, Spiritualist with Fear Phantom does most of what the Dread is designed to do but has a lot of other toys to play with.

But less facetiously, they are a summoner-lite - they get an outsider called a Phantom to run around with them inside their head, and they can pop it out to fight for them. Like the summoner, their job is to hang back and make things easier for the pet, and like the summoner, they can funnel their own HP to it when it is in trouble. Because they're psychic though, it can be easier for them to hide/act innocent while the phantom is fighting or rummaging through the drawers (or alternatively, throw on armor and go flank with it.)

The spell list is kinda underwhelming at the moment though. They don't seem to get anything discounted, and while that might be a good thing after the Summoner, they also aren't getting any neat spell economy toys like the Bloodrager did to make up for the lack of discounts.

But the phantom isn't a decent combatant, it gets two 1d4 slam attacks, and 12 strength which doesn't go higher without magic items or picking the anger emotion. So the phantom would probably get stuck being a ranged character with it's 14 dex and increasing dex. But that means every time you summon it you have to spend rounds handing it ammo and a weapon, which it then drops when it dies or gets desummoned, meaning you have to go and collect all those arrows and bow.

[Psyren]

The slams I believe are a last resort, it's main use is to deliver touch spells for you while incorporeal. Since it will be targeting touch AC with that, it doesn't need great stats.

A useful strategy for the master will be to activate ectoplasmic tendrils and perform a sort of ghetto spell combat - casting a spell as a standard and having the tentacles each attack during the same swift action, or having a tendril activate an item while she full-attacks.

[Milo v3]

The slams I believe are a last resort, it's main use is to deliver touch spells for you while incorporeal. Since it will be targeting touch AC with that, it doesn't need great stats.

So the class is just a familiar + incorporeal?

[Psyren]

So the class is just a familiar + incorporeal?

No, familiars can't buff all your allies.

I'm not saying it's perfect as-is but I think you're selling it a bit short.

[Milo v3]

No, familiars can't buff all your allies.

I'm not saying it's perfect as-is but I think you're selling it a bit short.

How does it buff your allies? I don't really see any buff spells on the spiritualist's list.

Closest I can see is Greater Spiritual Interference, which seems abit late if it's a selling point to separate it from familiars.

[Psyren]

How does it buff your allies? I don't really see any buff spells on the spiritualist's list.

All of the Phantoms have a group buff or area debuff of some kind. Anger gets Aura of Fury for example at 7th, while Jealousy gets Resentful Aura and Jealous Combatant. Zeal gets Determination Aura. Fear gets Increase Fear which combos with both the Phantom's attacks and any fear attacks used by allies.

[Prime32]

So if Rogue Eidolon is still around... I just got around to reading this and the fluff has me baffled. I mean yes, each of the classes have cool imagery and they seem like they'd be fun to play, but...

The Psychic is the only character whose "psychic magic" actually seems to come from the mind. The rest is entirely based on dealing with spirits, raising the question of why it's not called "spirit magic". :smallconfused: I mean yes they direct their spells mentally, but lots of magic is described that way - even in PF a wizard or sorcerer can redirect spells with his mind or Silence+Still them - so it doesn't contribute nearly as much to the identity of the system as its reliance on spirits.
Mesmerist looks kind of psychic at first glance, but it "[draws its] magic from the Astral Plane", and how exactly does a hypnotic suggestion cause someone to be surrounded by mirror images? :smallconfused: It's a lot more consistent if they're manipulating the spirit/soul, of which the mind is only a part.

Psychic abilities in D&D have always been about inner power; I mean in Core 3.5 the definition of psionics (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#psionics) is that they're spell-like abilities which rely entirely on the user's own power, without any rituals or outside magical forces.* The mechanics in Occult Adventures are the exact opposite of that.
*As far as I'm aware, the only reason this definition isn't in Core Pathfinder is because every Core 3.5 monster with psionics was Product Identity other than the aboleth and coautl, and there wasn't much point in including a rule for only two monsters especially when their psionic abilities could just be listed as SLAs.

Now, in terms of mechanics...
Kineticist
Kinetic Blade/Fist/Whip only functioning as part of the attack and full attack actions makes me sad. I'd gladly spend a swift action if it meant I could Cleave or charge or Spring Attack with them. As it is, though, Kinetic Blade is probably one of the strongest uses for the Vital Strike feat chain.
Are there any ways planned for Pyro- and Telekineticists to gain true flight, other than dipping into Air? A feat maybe?

Medium
I'm going to agree that the text here is kind of opaque and could use some streamlining. The rules in Dual Vessel that determine whether you get a spirit bonus or spirit powers become unnecessary if you just declare that spirit bonuses don't stack (and maybe grant each alignment a power, like how incarnate+soulborn had different immunities based on alignment, so that there's a drawback to picking two spirits of the same alignment as well). Likewise, rather than forcing players to remember at which levels they get X powers for Dual/Triune/Fourfold bindings, you can just say they count as a medium of -6/12/18 levels lower for determining which powers they get. It would also help if the text of the spirit powers themselves mentioned what levels they were gained at, rather than the player needing to refer back to the Spirit class feature.
The Twin's Dual Identity should clarify whether it duplicates gear, or you choose who gets which gear, or what; right now it can be read as an infinite wealth generator. Also, what happens to your alignment if it's split between twins and one disappears?
Will there be ways to specialise in the use of a single spirit, either through a generic "Favored Spirit" feat or something more specific? I could see, e.g. a medium archetype that's constantly bound to The Vision and uses other spirits mostly for their spells known, in exchange for cantrips, adding its spirit bonus to spell DCs, etc.

Mesmerist
Mental Potency's effect is really minor. As in, it gets weaker at every level, since there are fewer and fewer creatures that it will work on; it should really be a scaling effect. It looks especially bad when the Awesome Display ability of the Heavens Oracle already exists (increase HD caps by your Cha modifier, available at level 1).
One ability which I feel would be extremely useful on a Mesmerist: a way to prevent enemies from realising their mind was attacked when they succeed on their Will save. I've seen many players build mind-manipulating characters but end up afraid to use their powers in social situations because one lucky roll and their target will never trust them again. Even 1/day/target would be good as a safety net, encouraging players to try out their cool powers before switching to mundane diplomacy afterwards. It could potentially be built into Hypnotic Stare, since it's got memory-affecting properties already.

Occultist
Does "present the implement to the target or towards the area of effect" require it to be held? Or can someone casting spells through a helmet just headbutt in their general direction? :smalltongue:
Will there be any way to upgrade a Soulbound Puppet into a Soulbound Doll/Mannequin/Shell? Since it functions as a familiar, can you use the Improved Familiar feat to get extra options?

Spiritualist
The thing about Phantoms refusing to come out at the same time as Eidolons is... eh. A multiclass summoner/spiritualist isn't going to be that powerful in the first place, nor are his companions. It would be cooler to me if you instead had a [I]combined companion - effectively a multiclass phantom/eidolon, using the sum of your levels in both classes to determine its HD, and stacking all the other bonuses together.
Alternately, the mechanics could be clearer if Phantoms were beefed up a little and made into a Summoner archetype (leaving out stuff like the ability to manifest it in incorporeal form), then Spiritualist itself received a Phantom "as the summoner archetype".

[Extra Anchovies]

So if Rogue Eidolon is still around... I just got around to reading this and the fluff has me baffled. I mean yes, each of the classes have cool imagery and they seem like they'd be fun to play, but...

The Psychic is the only character whose "psychic magic" actually seems to come from the mind. The rest is entirely based on dealing with spirits, raising the question of why it's not called "spirit magic". :smallconfused: I mean yes they direct their spells mentally, but lots of magic is described that way - even in PF a wizard or sorcerer can redirect spells with his mind or Silence+Still them - so it doesn't contribute nearly as much to the identity of the system as its reliance on spirits.
Mesmerist looks kind of psychic at first glance, but it "[draws its] magic from the Astral Plane", and how exactly does a hypnotic suggestion cause someone to be surrounded by mirror images? :smallconfused: It's a lot more consistent if they're manipulating the spirit/soul, of which the mind is only a part.

Definitely in agreement here; I'm of the opinion that Psychic Magic should be renamed Occult Magic, both to fit the flavor and to match the title of the book.


Are there any ways planned for Pyro- and Telekineticists to gain true flight, other than dipping into Air? A feat maybe?

They already can; Greater Flame Jet and Greater Self Telekinesis both let them stay in midair.

[Psyren]

I disagree actually:

(a) the Mesmerist has nothing to do with spirits either.
(b) The theme connecting the ones that do deal with spirits has less to do with the spirits themselves and more to do with strong emotions. The Medium has to ride those waves and risks being submerged, the Occultist focuses around objects with sentimental value, and the powers of a Spiritualist's Phantom all center around a very powerful emotion that drives the creature. The Spirits are just a way of explaining how emotions external to the character and beyond their control end up in their head, nothing more.

So really what it amounts to is that the Psychic and Mesmerist are thematic flavors of psion while the Medium, Occultist and Spiritualist are all thematic flavors of wilder.

[Milo v3]

The only class that doesn't have a mental emotional flavour to it's abilities is the Kineticist, but that's forgiven because the concept is still cool.

[Erik Vale]

The only class that doesn't have a mental emotional flavour to it's abilities is the Kineticist, but that's forgiven because the concept is still cool.

And will make Paizo regret the conductive enchantment.

[Milo v3]

And will make Paizo regret the conductive enchantment.

My guess is that they'll just say that doesn't work since it has unlimited uses, either way wouldn't most kineticist wouldn't benefit since most don't get a touch attack blast.

[Psyren]

The only class that doesn't have a mental emotional flavour to it's abilities is the Kineticist, but that's forgiven because the concept is still cool.

It doesn't have a psychic flavor either so my guess is that they're aware of its black sheep status.


My guess is that they'll just say that doesn't work since it has unlimited uses, either way wouldn't most kineticist wouldn't benefit since most don't get a touch attack blast.

Unlimited-use SLAs are explicitly allowed with Conductive.

[Erik Vale]

My guess is that they'll just say that doesn't work since it has unlimited uses, either way wouldn't most kineticist wouldn't benefit since most don't get a touch attack blast.

As above, but no, Conductive isn't about that.

It's about Irratives.
And not just that, Irratives at range. Stick it on a bow. Maybe even grab the splintering arrows to affect multiple 5ft bursts, with them always hitting as long as the enemy doesn't have evasion.
Edit: Or raining, that way you hit as a splash weapon. Then stack on chaining for your blast.

[Psyren]

Given that conductive says "at-will abilities can be used every round" - it's easy to interpret that as 1/round with the bonus damage rather than 1/iterative. That's useful without being broken.

[master4sword]

Given that conductive says "at-will abilities can be used every round" - it's easy to interpret that as 1/round with the bonus damage rather than 1/iterative. That's useful without being broken.


A conductive weapon is able to channel the energy of a spell-like or supernatural ability that relies on a melee or ranged touch attack to hit its target (such as from a cleric's domain granted power, sorcerer's bloodline power, oracle's mystery revelation, or wizard's arcane school power). When the wielder makes a successful attack of the appropriate type, he may choose to expend two uses of his magical ability to channel it through the weapon to the struck opponent, who takes the effects of the weapon attack and the special ability. (If the wielder has unlimited uses of a special ability, he may channel through the weapon every round.) For example, a paladin who strikes an undead opponent with her conductive greatsword can expend two uses of lay on hands ability (a supernatural melee touch attack) to deal greatsword damage and damage from one use of her lay on hands. This weapon property can only be used once per round, and only works with magical abilities of the same type as the weapon (melee or ranged).

Pretty explicitly 1/round, so no conducted iteratives.

[Erik Vale]

I'd consider that a rather non existent interpretation, given as it never mention numbers.
Huh, never noticed that last bit...
That's frustrating.

[Psyren]

Pretty explicitly 1/round, so no conducted iteratives.

Ah, thanks for the cite. So yeah, conductive + kineticist is fine.

[Extra Anchovies]

You know, the more I look at the Kineticist, the more it just looks like a worse version of the 3.5 Warlock.

Iterative blast attacks (non-reach) come online at level 1 for Warlock (Eldritch Claws), and at level 5 for Kineticist (Kinetic Blade + Form Infusion Specialization so you aren't taking 20 damage/round). With reach, it's still level 1 for Warlock (Eldritch Glaive), but it's level 8 for Kineticist (Kinetic Whip + Form Infusion Specialization, taken twice). Granted, iteratives only come online at level 8 anyways, but it's still worth noting that a Warlock need only invest a feat or one invocation known to get iteratives with reach, while a Kineticist has to invest two talents plus two Infusion Specializations.

Flight comes online for both at level 6, but the Warlock need only spend one invocation known while a Kineticist has to spend two of their talents (air cushion + wings of air, self telekinesis/flame jet + their greater versions).

Ranged sniping has a range of 60 feet for a Warlock with zero invocations invested, but only Aerokineticists can get 60 ft. range, and must invest a talent to do so. 120-foot range is online for the Warlock as early as level 1 for the cost of one invocation, while a Kineticist has to wait until level 5 (and spend one talent plus one Infusion Specialization) to get that range without taking burn. Chain Lightning is perhaps where the Kineticist has its only victory; it's significantly better than Eldritch Chain, but that isn't saying much. However, Chain Lightning only comes online at level 11 unless the Kineticist doesn't like having hit points; level 11 is also when Warlocks can ignore SR while still making touch attacks, something the Kineticist can never do. Warlocks also never have to contend with damage reduction, ever. If a Kineticist wants to ignore SR, they have to make non-touch melee attacks (with their average BAB) that are very subject to DR.

So we can see from the above examples that to get the same abilities as a Warlock, a Kineticist has to invest a lot more of their talents known than a Warlock does of their invocations known, and many of those abilities come online later. And at the end of the day? The warlock still gets more invocations than the Kineticist receives talents. Plus, Hellfire Warlock more than offsets the one-die damage discrepancy, and if Legacy Champion is on the table then the Warlock outpaces even the Composite Blasts, while taking only one-fourth the damage (2*level vs 1 point of Constitution). And while burn cannot be healed, ability damage from Hellfire can.

Long story short, I'd rather play an unmodified 3.5 Warlock in a Pathfinder game than I would a Kineticist, even without access to Hellfire Warlock. This class needs some major upgrades to be attractive, considering how poorly it compares to a mid/high-T4 or mid/low T3 class.

[T.G. Oskar]

You know, the more I look at the Kineticist, the more it just looks like a worse version of the 3.5 Warlock.

Iterative blast attacks (non-reach) come online at level 1 for Warlock (Eldritch Claws), and at level 5 for Kineticist (Kinetic Blade + Form Infusion Specialization so you aren't taking 20 damage/round). With reach, it's still level 1 for Warlock (Eldritch Glaive), but it's level 8 for Kineticist (Kinetic Whip + Form Infusion Specialization, taken twice). Granted, iteratives only come online at level 8 anyways, but it's still worth noting that a Warlock need only invest a feat or one invocation known to get iteratives with reach, while a Kineticist has to invest two talents plus two Infusion Specializations.

Minor nitpick: Eldritch Claws is a Dragon magazine feat. It's not official, unlike Eldritch Glaive. Thus, Eldritch Claws may not appear in all tables; only those that allow that specific feat.

That said: Hideous Blow is another way to get melee-ranged extra damage, but only on one blow and you need to wield a weapon.


So we can see from the above examples that to get the same abilities as a Warlock, a Kineticist has to invest a lot more of their talents known than a Warlock does of their invocations known, and many of those abilities come online later. And at the end of the day? The warlock still gets more invocations than the Kineticist receives talents. Plus, Hellfire Warlock more than offsets the one-die damage discrepancy, and if Legacy Champion is on the table then the Warlock outpaces even the Composite Blasts, while taking only one-fourth the damage (2*level vs 1 point of Constitution). And while burn cannot be healed, ability damage from Hellfire can.

Long story short, I'd rather play an unmodified 3.5 Warlock in a Pathfinder game than I would a Kineticist, even without access to Hellfire Warlock. This class needs some major upgrades to be attractive, considering how poorly it compares to a mid/high-T4 or mid/low T3 class.

You're comparing the full wealth of optimization of a 3.5 Warlock to the playtest of the Kineticist; this is just as unfair as comparing the wealth of 3.5 content or PF content to 5e when the DMG hasn't even been released. Depending on how much support does Occult Adventures' classes get, you may see new tricks for them, or perhaps Archetypes that support them.

The bit that the Kineticist has on its favor, if it can be said as such, is that the abilities you get are intentionally limited. The Warlock has a good set of invocations, but they get only a few; it's your decision if you want to have more Eldritch Blasts/Shape Invocations or the SLA Invocations, since you can't have both. With the limited amount, you need a lot of thought to play a Warlock well. Also: most of the Invocations you chose were essentially all-day powers hidden beneath the trappings of SLAs; Fell Flight is the best known example of it, as it grants you flight for 24 hours...meaning that, unless dispelled, you needed to use it only once. The difference between that and granting actual permanent flight as a (Su) ability was so small it was almost meaningless.

From what I've seen from the Kineticist, it definitely has more of a vibe of "element-themed superhero" rather than a Bender. The way Kinetic Blasts and powers manifest echo the power set you'd expect from an Elemental Manipulator. While I haven't seen the playtest document at all, it's not hard to figure that, for example, an Aerokineticist could have powers related to, say, Wind Wall or Feather Fall or Fly or Gust of Wind, since all of those spells relate to manipulation of Air. An Air Manipulator could control wind in that way, innately rather than scientifically. You could remove the "psychic magic" feel and rename it into...I dunno, "Quantum" and the flavor would fit better. It's expected that the Kineticist will feel like such; you're progressing on your power set, rather than progressing your innate magical powers as a Warlock would.

[Psyren]

Guys, FYI, the playtest ends tomorrow. (http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lgre?Occult-Adventures-Playtest-Coming-to-a-Close) Here's hoping the release version of the Psychic gets a meatier list - at least, I'll put that in the survey if there's an option.

Also, we have a couple of iconic art previews:

http://static3.paizo.com/image/content/PathfinderRPG/PZO1132-Psychic.jpg

http://static3.paizo.com/image/content/PathfinderRPG/PZO1132-Occultist.jpg

[Gemini476]

Oh wow, the final question in the survey for the Kineticist sure is a doozy.

9. Of the two, would you rather see the kineticist gain more utility and out-of-combat options or higher damage output? (1 means you'd rather see the kineticist expand toward utility and out-of-combat options, 5 means you'd rather see it sacrifice utility for greater damage output)

Why on earth is that even a thing. Why would you even make that dichotomy?

[Extra Anchovies]

@Gemini: Definitely in agreement regarding that monster of a question. It's the Sophie's Choice of the Occult Adventures playtest.


Also, we have a couple of iconic art previews:

http://static3.paizo.com/image/content/PathfinderRPG/PZO1132-Psychic.jpg

http://static3.paizo.com/image/content/PathfinderRPG/PZO1132-Occultist.jpg

Oh, wow. The iconic Psychic looks awesome. I'm pumped to see what the colored version looks like. And the iconic Occultist looks pretty much exactly how I expected him to - almost overloaded with random trinkets and other objects, and carrying a skull :smallbiggrin:

[Elricaltovilla]

I could not in good conscience hit the submit button on the Kineticist survey. There was no way to actually and accurately express my concerns with the class, which are numerous. More than that, its also the only class in the book I have any real interest in, so I'll probably be passing on Occult Adventures when it comes out. :smallannoyed:

[Ssalarn]

I could not in good conscience hit the submit button on the Kineticist survey. There was no way to actually and accurately express my concerns with the class, which are numerous. More than that, its also the only class in the book I have any real interest in, so I'll probably be passing on Occult Adventures when it comes out. :smallannoyed:

Having actually talked a bit with some of the guys at Paizo and hearing first hand their assessments of the playtest information, I think it'll actually work out pretty well. I suspect what we'll see with the Kineticist is a small boost in damage and hopefully some optional but necessary mechanics, like Composite Blasts, moved directly into the class chassis. Mark had mentioned in the playtest thread that they were pretty much an anticipated part of the class' ability to deal damage, so it really should be built into the class if it's that integral to the progression. I also suspect the utility is going to get a big boost up, as Mark has said several times that he intentionally left a lot of room there. I know in the thread he's also said that the Kineticist is probably going to be bumped to 4 + Int skills instead of the current 2.
I don't expect to see him change Burn at all (and really, the mechanical framework there is actually very solid and doesn't really need to be changed), though if he was going to change it, I'd really prefer to see him raise the amount of Burn you can take in a given round, rather than changing the basic way the system works. Given the various ways you can negate or balance out Burn, I'd like it more if the current per round limit were a per attack limit.

[Psyren]

Oh, wow. The iconic Psychic looks awesome. I'm pumped to see what the colored version looks like. And the iconic Occultist looks pretty much exactly how I expected him to - almost overloaded with random trinkets and other objects, and carrying a skull :smallbiggrin:

As was the case in 3.5 Golarion, psychics come from Vudra, which is basically Golarion's sendup of India/Bangladesh. So I expect her to be very pretty indeed once the color comes through.

There's a rumor she might be Sajan's (iconic monk) long-lost sister joining their ranks, but the creative folks are tight-lipped.

I'm looking forward to the iconic Kineticisit myself.

[Extra Anchovies]

Having actually talked a bit with some of the guys at Paizo and hearing first hand their assessments of the playtest information, I think it'll actually work out pretty well. I suspect what we'll see with the Kineticist is a small boost in damage and hopefully some optional but necessary mechanics, like Composite Blasts, moved directly into the class chassis. Mark had mentioned in the playtest thread that they were pretty much an anticipated part of the class' ability to deal damage, so it really should be built into the class if it's that integral to the progression. I also suspect the utility is going to get a big boost up, as Mark has said several times that he intentionally left a lot of room there. I know in the thread he's also said that the Kineticist is probably going to be bumped to 4 + Int skills instead of the current 2.
I don't expect to see him change Burn at all (and really, the mechanical framework there is actually very solid and doesn't really need to be changed), though if he was going to change it, I'd really prefer to see him raise the amount of Burn you can take in a given round, rather than changing the basic way the system works. Given the various ways you can negate or balance out Burn, I'd like it more if the current per round limit were a per attack limit.

Good to hear from someone who knows what's going on! The composite blasts had always sort of not made much sense to me, not thematically but mechanically. They really only come online at level 15, when Composite Specialization reduces their burn cost to 1 so you can take the move action to reduce burn to zero. Without them the only real way to get some damage done is Kinetic Blade/Whip.

Regarding Burn, I've gotten a lot less critical of that lately. I guess it's due to my throwing together a zero-burn aerokineticist build that actually seems like it would hold up fairly well in combat (the only out-of-combat utility it provides is flight, though, which is an issue; I'm looking forward to 4+Int skills).


3.5 Golarion

There was a 3.5 version of Golarion? Huh. Learn something new every day, I guess.

[Psyren]

There was a 3.5 version of Golarion?

Yep (http://www.amazon.com/Pathfinder-Chronicles-Campaign-Erik-Mona/dp/1601251122) (note the publication date.)

This was in fact what led to Pathfinder's creation in general - they had all these stories and splats and adventure paths planned for their Golarion setting and they couldn't translate any of them to 4e. Worse, back then the GSL had that restriction about making you choose whether to publish only for 4e or only for 3.5. So they chose the latter and the rest is history.