Kineticist Feats?

[Uhtred]

So recently, I've decided to give the Kineticist a try, which I know seems like I've taken leave of my senses, but since I almost always play heavy melee and still don't feel comfortable (or have the time for) true casters, I figured it was interesting and I'd give it a shot. I've opted to go Earth, because the handbooks I've read have said it has good offense, good defense, and interesting utility, and given how much time our group spends in crypts and dungeons I won't ever be out of material to work with. I'm a Dwarf, lvl 12, so I have a fair number of feats to play around with, but after Weapon Finesse, Deadly Aim, and Improved Initiative, I don't really know what sorts of feats to take. I figure I will rarely want to be in melee ever, but if I find myself in that place then I'll go Kinetic Blade and Weapon Finesse helps there. But apart from those three feats I'm honestly confused what will apply to my kinetic blasts. Do I need Combat Casting? I don't think so, since my blasts are technically ranged weapons. Do I then need the Point Blank Shot/Precise Shot/Improved Precise Shot feats? Why doesn't Rapid Shot apply? This class is difficult to understand.
My DM has ruled that any Pathfinder feats are available, as well as any 3.5 (as long as he approves them first) Although if they exist in both places I have to take the Pathfinder variant instead of the 3.5 variant. So I was thinking Earth Power from Races of Stone? Having Earth Sense means I can drop Tremorsense as a Utility Power and adapting it from 3.5 Psionics would mean that using my Kinetic powers would cost 1 point of burn less? I don't know. Suggestions?

[Triskavanski]

Well, first of all your blasts are a spell like ability that functions as a weapon. Do you need Concentration? Not really. The reason would be because you're wanting to be ranged.

Toughness - 1 more point of burn essentially.

Delayed Kinetic Blast - This one is actually pretty cool as you could blast something, then run away. A few rounds later boom.

Leadership - Take leadership. Get another Kinectist cohort. Take the teamwork feat Composit Kinect Blast to improve your range of elementals

[Florian]

@Uhtred:

All your blasts are ranged spell-like abilities and therefore only work with certain ranged combat feats like point-blank shot and precise shot, but do not work well with weapon specific feats like rapid shot, as SPs are not weapon and don't follow their rules here.
You should care about burn, though, and invest in Toughness, Endurance and Diehard, next to aforementioned point-blank shot and precise shot. Skip weapon finesse of you can.

[avr]

@Uhtred:

All your blasts are ranged spell-like abilities and therefore only work with certain ranged combat feats like point-blank shot and precise shot, but do not work well with weapon specific feats like rapid shot, as SPs are not weapon and don't follow their rules here.
You should care about burn, though, and invest in Toughness, Endurance and Diehard, next to aforementioned point-blank shot and precise shot. Skip weapon finesse of you can.
Toughness maybe, Endurance and Diehard never due to the way nonlethal damage works. Nonlethal damage > current hp means you're unconscious regardless of whether you have diehard.

PBS/Precise Shot is good unless you get the kinetic blade/whip form for close-up situations, which more or less supercedes them. Improved Precise Shot requires BAB +11 which you don't have. Apparently weapon focus works.

3.5 ... a reserve feat like Clutch of Earth should work, and the CL bonus might be occasionally useful. ToB strikes won't work but boosts might, so consider grabbing one with a feat (see also Dreamscarred Press's Path of War.)

[Uhtred]

Toughness maybe, Endurance and Diehard never due to the way nonlethal damage works. Nonlethal damage > current hp means you're unconscious regardless of whether you have diehard.

PBS/Precise Shot is good unless you get the kinetic blade/whip form for close-up situations, which more or less supercedes them. Improved Precise Shot requires BAB +11 which you don't have. Apparently weapon focus works.

3.5 ... a reserve feat like Clutch of Earth should work, and the CL bonus might be occasionally useful. ToB strikes won't work but boosts might, so consider grabbing one with a feat (see also Dreamscarred Press's Path of War.)

The wording on Reserve Feats specifically says that SLA's don't qualify, and that's what my geokineticism is. I would use the heck out of that, too. :/ I've definitely got Kinetic Blade/Whip as a just-in-case measure; our party has enough heavies that I should be able to get a few hundred pounds of muscle, metal, and stone in between me and anyone that means me harm. I've got a Dwarven Axe-Buckler (DM Approved) that has Arrow Deflection on it too, so I can negate a ranged attack per round and my Kinetic Defense and prodigious use of Kinetic Barrier and Snake should keep me more or less out of harm's way. I wish there was a specific list of what feats do and do not apply to Kinetic Blasts; that would make the choice much easier. Also I was under the impression that toughness is terrible...Has it improved in Pathfinder?

[jesterjeff]

+3hp, +1hp every level above 3.

[Florian]

@avr:

That's true, but not the reason I mentioned these feats. Excess nonleathal damage still becomes lethal damage and when you knock yourself out, you still keep getting damaged, like being caught in an AoE blast.
In addition, they are prereqs for some interesting feats like Heroic Defiance or Stalwart. Dipping a level unbreakable fighter is not a bad option for kineticists.

@Uhtred:

Every feat that works with (ranged) touch spells also works with kinetic blasts. Take a look in combat wizard guides to see what is availlable there.

[avr]

@ Florian: free stabilizing when you get into negative hp is no more useful for a kineticist than anyone else, and it's not worth much. Yes, once your nonlethal damage exceeds your maximum (not current) hp it starts turning into lethal damage, but kineticists can't do that to themselves and it's a pretty rare attack form. Try doing a worked example and you'll see how difficult it is for that to matter.

Neither Heroic Recovery nor Stalwart is worth 3 feats with no other significant benefits, and the two together aren't worth 4. I'm not sure either is worth a weak level dip plus a feat as well either.

@ Uhtred: toughness still isn't good, but when you might be effectively down a third of your hp at the start of the day due to the bonuses you get via elemental overflow (and to your defense talent for taking on burn for some specs) it looks more attractive.

A shame I misread the reserve feats, OK.

[Uhtred]

@ Florian: free stabilizing when you get into negative hp is no more useful for a kineticist than anyone else, and it's not worth much. Yes, once your nonlethal damage exceeds your maximum (not current) hp it starts turning into lethal damage, but kineticists can't do that to themselves and it's a pretty rare attack form. Try doing a worked example and you'll see how difficult it is for that to matter.

Neither Heroic Recovery nor Stalwart is worth 3 feats with no other significant benefits, and the two together aren't worth 4. I'm not sure either is worth a weak level dip plus a feat as well either.

@ Uhtred: toughness still isn't good, but when you might be effectively down a third of your hp at the start of the day due to the bonuses you get via elemental overflow (and to your defense talent for taking on burn for some specs) it looks more attractive.

A shame I misread the reserve feats, OK.

I absolutely agree on heroic recovery and stalwart. And while I'm not short of feats, Toughness still doesn't seem worth it. Maybe if it did something more than a favored class bonus would do (If my favored class bonus wasn't actually awesome for my build.)
So as far as burn goes, I've got a 25 in Constitution (Plugging my 20 from stat rolls into it, +2 from Dwarf, +3 from ability score increases at lvls 4 8 and 12), a Belt of Elemental Earth (+4 to Con) and an Ioun Stone of +2 to Con, so a standing 31+rolling pretty well for HP means I'm sitting at 208hp. I'm allowed to take a number of burn equal to 3+my Con mod, so 13, which at level 12 would be 156 nonlethal damage maximum, leaving me a significant buffer of 52hp during which to throw up kinetic barriers, earth glide, or run screaming behind my party members while weeping and clutching my security blanket. And if I've taken that much burn I've pumped the +4 to to a physical stat from Elemental Overflow into Con, so a little more hp there, too. So mitigating burn is something I've had my eye on from the outset. I'm looking to be more effective with my kinetic blasts or any fun earth-related feats, and the clarification that anything that affects spell-like abilities will affect my blasts means I'll be curling up with Dragon Compendium later. :)

[Psyren]

For classes that have feats to spare, VMC is a good option - in exchange for 5 of your feats, you can add on a helpful set of secondary class features. For kineticist, VMC Rogue is a good choice for boosting the damage of all your blasts via sneak attack, and you can enable it fairly easily against most foes via Windsight or Goz Mask. Sorcerer is another good choice for bloodline powers without needing high Charisma. VMC Summoner gives you solid backup in the form of an eidolon, VMC Oracle gives you a number of helpful revelations, and VMC Wizard gives you a familiar and helpful school powers.

[N. Jolly]

For classes that have feats to spare, VMC is a good option - in exchange for 5 of your feats, you can add on a helpful set of secondary class features. For kineticist, VMC Rogue is a good choice for boosting the damage of all your blasts via sneak attack, and you can enable it fairly easily against most foes via Windsight or Goz Mask. Sorcerer is another good choice for bloodline powers without needing high Charisma. VMC Summoner gives you solid backup in the form of an eidolon, VMC Oracle gives you a number of helpful revelations, and VMC Wizard gives you a familiar and helpful school powers.

Totally agree here, I seriously should include a VMC section since the kineticist needs like 3 feats at most (point blank shot, precise shot, weapon finesse) and the rest is just to taste. Rogue is a fun choice (especially for aether), wizard isn't bad, and there's a few others, but really, there aren't a ton of feats to help out. Also here's hoping you checked out my guide, as it's written by a very amazing person.

[jesterjeff]

What is VMC?

[Psyren]

What is VMC?

Variant Multiclassing from Pathfinder Unchained. Trade 5 feats for some class features from a secondary class that scale with your character level, and (with a few exceptions) you count as having that class feature for prereqs. For example, a wizard VMC rogue can qualify for Arcane Trickster without any rogue levels, allowing him to get in without losing any casting.

[Uhtred]

Totally agree here, I seriously should include a VMC section since the kineticist needs like 3 feats at most (point blank shot, precise shot, weapon finesse) and the rest is just to taste. Rogue is a fun choice (especially for aether), wizard isn't bad, and there's a few others, but really, there aren't a ton of feats to help out. Also here's hoping you checked out my guide, as it's written by a very amazing person.

It is currently one of my open tabs! I totally agree that Burn was written by two different people who disagreed on whether it should be good or bad. Looking forward to your sections on Void and Wood Kineticists; just picked up the Occult Origins book and am curious whether either would gish with my earthbending. Keep up the good work, and if I could suggest the Belt of Elemental Earth for your equipment section? Elemental Body III 1/Day and a constant +4 to Con is not bad for the gp you spend on it. Also fun are Gloves of Shaping, for times when you have a little time for fine control over your stone sculpting.


Variant Multiclassing from Pathfinder Unchained. Trade 5 feats for some class features from a secondary class that scale with your character level, and (with a few exceptions) you count as having that class feature for prereqs. For example, a wizard VMC rogue can qualify for Arcane Trickster without any rogue levels, allowing him to get in without losing any casting.

I've been told that VMC is both kosher and encouraged (The DM wants to see how it would work in an actual campaign) and if I hadn't fallen in love with my Geokineticist already, I would totally build a Telekineticist VMC Rogue and be a better Rogue than our party Rogue. I might build it anyway.

[Novawurmson]

I wrote a guide on VMCs (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1adD5wYmcP5lB4JYD8D3fUBFuumMeW4CKh9ZLVMgKSDc/edit?usp=sharing). Wizard is a great VMC for just about anyone, but depending on your stat array, I'd even check out Paladin for Lay on Hands, which scales really well with character level and can be used on yourself as a swift action.

[Uhtred]

I think I'm gonna do Expanded Element (Air) and VMC Magus or Wizard! I'm gonna have a variant that does Expanded Element (Void), too, because I'm curious what a Chaokineticist can do. We don't traditionally use Negative Energy stuff because Math isn't our group's strong suit, but the gravity manipulation and permanent unhealable damage is VERY attractive, and I'd get the same flight I'd get from Air. Does anyone have any experience playing a Voidbender? I know Occult Origins is relatively new, but I have three sessions to finalize my build for long-term play.