Uhtred
2015-12-07, 02:50 PM
One of my players wants to run his own game, and has a lot of experience with D&D, mostly 2nd-Ed-3.5. So we'd start at level five, gestalt, and apparently most/all of us are choosing Kineticist as part of our gestalt build, mostly for flavor and campaign story stuff. So what I'm looking at is a Goliath Geokineticist/? who will focus on melee rather than range to take advantage of the Goliath's Strength bonus, but I'm torn between the Unchained Monk and the Unchained Barbarian as my gestalt class.
On the one hand, bonus damage to Kinetic Fist, solid hit die, full base attack, and the various Monk abilities, including the various stunning mechanics and extra attacks on full attacks offered by the Unchained version of Flurry. Also, in a 3rd-party Pathfinder book called King of the Ring there is a Rikishi archetype for the Monk, basically a Sumo, who uses Con as their base stat for Monk stuff (Ki pool, Nat Armor bonus, 1/2 mod on unarmed damage in addition to Strength) so that would make things a little easier MAD-wise, bringing me down essentially to Str/Con. Maybe Dex for a little extra AC and so I won't auto-miss on a ranged Kinetic Blast, supposing it comes to that.
I'd pick Barbarian for a lot of the same reasons, plus medium armor, the bonuses to attacks and damage from rage, bonus hit points, and rage powers, plus a little versatility in the form of actual weapons should the occasion call for it. I'm sure there would be an earth-themed archetype, too. Maybe go regular Barbarian instead of Unchained so that I get a legit bonus to Str/Con, that would stack with the bonuses from Elemental Overflow.
So which is the better option? Is Elemental Annihilator the way to go in this build? Ascetic just seems like if I wanted to pick up Barbarian as the Gestalt class but still wanted Monk stuff.
On the one hand, bonus damage to Kinetic Fist, solid hit die, full base attack, and the various Monk abilities, including the various stunning mechanics and extra attacks on full attacks offered by the Unchained version of Flurry. Also, in a 3rd-party Pathfinder book called King of the Ring there is a Rikishi archetype for the Monk, basically a Sumo, who uses Con as their base stat for Monk stuff (Ki pool, Nat Armor bonus, 1/2 mod on unarmed damage in addition to Strength) so that would make things a little easier MAD-wise, bringing me down essentially to Str/Con. Maybe Dex for a little extra AC and so I won't auto-miss on a ranged Kinetic Blast, supposing it comes to that.
I'd pick Barbarian for a lot of the same reasons, plus medium armor, the bonuses to attacks and damage from rage, bonus hit points, and rage powers, plus a little versatility in the form of actual weapons should the occasion call for it. I'm sure there would be an earth-themed archetype, too. Maybe go regular Barbarian instead of Unchained so that I get a legit bonus to Str/Con, that would stack with the bonuses from Elemental Overflow.
So which is the better option? Is Elemental Annihilator the way to go in this build? Ascetic just seems like if I wanted to pick up Barbarian as the Gestalt class but still wanted Monk stuff.