Is Kineticist Worth Trying to Understand?

[Palanan]

The general opinion of the kineticist seems to be that it works poorly as written, or not at all. When I was reading through Occult Adventures the class didn’t make easy sense to me, and I’m leery of spending yet more effort trying to understand it. One of my players tried reading it a few days ago and she gave up in confused frustration, so it’s not just me.

Is it worth spending any more effort to understand, or is it best to simply pass it by? Note that I’m not trying to “do” anything in particular; I’m just wondering if the class brings anything unique and useful that’s worth spending the extra time on.

[NomGarret]

It does a decent job of being a straightforward elemental blaster. The damage output has a fairly narrow optimization range, which is likely why you’ll see very different reactions to its output. The biggest problem, IMO, is that it’s not described the way you want a straightforward blaster to be. It has so many fiddly descriptions and poor presentation issues that it comes off as incomprehensible and thus turns off those players who want a simpler magic class. In other words, go ahead and learn it if someone really wants it, but I wouldn’t bother otherwise.

[Kurald Galain]

Is it worth spending any more effort to understand
Nope.

If you want a straightforward elemental blaster, play a sorcerer with draconic bloodline. Kinny is far from straightforward, and has way worse damage and utility than an unoptimized sorcerer, while being much harder to understand.


I’m just wondering if the class brings anything unique and useful that’s worth spending the extra time on.
Nope. Instead of unique abilities, it gets standard spell effects with extra restrictions, and about four levels after a partial caster would get them. It really is a contender (along with the shifter) for the worst class ever published by Paizo.

[zlefin]

no. there are easier ways to fulfill the niche.
As another alternative for filling the niche: use the spheres of power elementalist.

[Rynjin]

Class is trash, and way overly wordy. Even if there was something salvageable there, the Burn mechanic being the centerpiece shoots it in the foot.

Even if you do take the time to learn it (which isn't really that hard) you'll realize the class uses a whole lot of words to say not very much at all, and the class' build depth is kiddie pool-esque. Its damage is lackluster, utility limited and frustrating to use, and you'll find yourself stymied at every turn by the cloying, omnipresent need to punch yourself in the face to accomplish anything.

The math is tight, and that's really all that can be said about it. As long as you understand the mechanics, you can't really **** up a Kineticist...but neither can you optimize it to any significant degree. It is firmly stuck in the middle of the road, viable-but-never-great role it comes pre-packaged in, except saddled with un-fun mechanics that begs for a truly spectacular class attached to make the frustration worth it.

It's basically a 5e class in terms of build variety and depth (i.e. there's about two different builds; Kinetic Blade melee and the opposite of that) but with Pathfinder's inelegant phrasing and mechanical design married into an unholy amalgam of a class that is better left forgotten, like most of Occult adventures, which basically just gave us a mix of reskins of existing classes (Psychic, Spiritualist), trash (Kineticist, especially Medium), and two interesting classes with their own issues (Mesmerist and Occultist).

The latter two are worth wading through the overly complicated wording to get to (especially Occultist), but the rest are better left forgotten or only trotted out when you need a VERY specific archetype of character (namely Illusion/Enchantment Mentalist Sorcerer and Spooky!Unchained Summoner for Psychic and Spiritualist respectively).

[Florian]

Repeat after me: This it not the Warlock. There is no free at will blast and spell spamming in PF!

Ok, it´s really important to not confuse the Kinny with the Warlock, else you'll be stuck in total hate-on mode, like Kurald over there.

That said, it´s a pretty ok class with a lot of build-your-own features that clocks in at around Ranger-level of effectiveness, power and complexity, with the utility blasts replacing the spellcasting. I actually do like one of the offered melee archetypes, the Kinetic Knight, which was pretty fun to play with a combination of air, fire and positive.

[Andor13]

The Kineticists shtick is elemental blastiness all-day. But they aren't great at it, and are probably not worth the effort, is the apparent consensus.

If you're open to 3rd party stuff the Mystic (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/path-of-war/classes/mystic/) or Avowed (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?509440-Forrestfire-Studios-Playtest-The-Avowed-a-3pp-warlock-with-a-psychic-bent) do a better job of fulfilling that warlock-ish role.

[Rhedyn]

The Telekinetic is pretty useful and once you grok it, it's full of useful builds that hit between the PF tier 3 and tier 4 (bad builds).

Only bother learning it, if you want to be playing something other than Pathfinder. It's actually a whole suite of classes mashed into one package that really could have been it's own dedicated book.

[Eldonauran]

I might be the dissenting voice in the crowd, but I think it is worth learning and using. At my table, we tend to not use kineticists as their damage output can outright ruin the CR encounter tables (as can any well optimized character) but they are not banned. We have a rule that if players get to use a kineticist, the DM/GM gets to use them too. Players are a bit more weary when they might expect a well coordinated team of of earth/fire "benders" erupting out of the ground and drowning them in magma.

Kineticists are definitionly a niche character and have their uses. I like them but I like them more when I get to use a limited smatter of their abilities with other classes, like the Havoker (Witch) and Water Dancer (Monk).

[Manyasone]

First off, I agree with the spheres of power elementalist statement.
Second, if you really really want to play a kinny, use the material provided by N. Jolly. It makes it viable and you can review it on the http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/other-options

[Rynjin]

I might be the dissenting voice in the crowd, but I think it is worth learning and using. At my table, we tend to not use kineticists as their damage output can outright ruin the CR encounter tables (as can any well optimized character) but they are not banned. We have a rule that if players get to use a kineticist, the DM/GM gets to use them too. Players are a bit more weary when they might expect a well coordinated team of of earth/fire "benders" erupting out of the ground and drowning them in magma.

Kineticists are definitionly a niche character and have their uses. I like them but I like them more when I get to use a limited smatter of their abilities with other classes, like the Havoker (Witch) and Water Dancer (Monk).

3/4 BaB archers with basic investments in archery Feats handily match Kinetcists; true damage dealers outstrip them.

If Kinetcists are broken at your table, I shudder to think what a Barbarian or Ranger looks like to you.

[Eldonauran]

3/4 BaB archers with basic investments in archery Feats handily match Kinetcists; true damage dealers outstrip them.

If Kinetcists are broken at your table, I shudder to think what a Barbarian or Ranger looks like to you.Sure, they match the damage output of a kineticist with feat investments. I did say that "any well optimized" character could do that same thing. "Basic investments" are still optimization, even when they are well known. Kineticists can do what they do without the same feat investments and do just about the same with a bow as the optimized characters, on top of their kineticist abilities. You are not adding anything new or relevant with your comment.

I am well aware of what damage a Barbarian or Ranger can produce when in their elements. I have an invulnerable rager that does well over 30 damage on a decent, non-crit, hit at lower levels. She also happens to crit a LOT in my games. Your assumption that I believe kineticists are "broken" is misplaced. Every class has an area that they struggle to cover well, and enemies are supposed to take advantage of those vulnerabilities when their typical tactics are ineffective.

Perhaps less jumping to conclusions and day dreaming about what goes on at my table, and more asking for clarification when you see something that doesn't quite fit your perceptions?

[Rynjin]

It's more that I've had this conversation a few times, and comments like that always baffle me.

It's like I said: Kineticists are hard to **** up (nearly impossible, in fact). Their math is super tightly tied to what can reasonably be expected for a party to fight, and puts them firmly in the expected 3-4 round combat range assumption that Paizo works under.

Kineticists may blow the CR guidelines out, to a certain perspective, but those guidelines aren't really what the monsters in the book tend to follow anyway. In any real game scenario they shouldn't be overperforming unless your GM likes to throw lots of encounters with mobs of low CR enemies, or allows a 15 minute adventuring day so the Kineticist can dump all their Burn in 1-2 combats.

I find myself confused, in that case, what you meant (since you still haven't really clarified). If you just mean per the table, I'm not sure you're correct there, and definitely aren't when you take a large sampling of the bestiary to compare them to (as I've done before, both during and after playtest for the class; part of my frustration with it is that its optimization avenues were nerfed from the playtest when Vital Strike worked with Kinetic Blast).

It's a very odd MAD deal to have, is my point. I would probably laugh at a GM that threatened "If you play a Kineticist there will be Kineticist enemies" as if it was some kind of huge shift for the game akin to making a note to optimize all of an APs statblock to account for PC optimization. They would be threatening, sure,...but no more so than any of the monsters out there with ~65% hit rates and 4-5 natural attacks are.

So you're left with a class that can match a barely optimized character in combat...and one that lacks the utility of those classes, which is why I'm so hard on it. It's not great as a beatstick (being roughly equivalent to a buffed Warpriest in damage output) and doesn't bring as much to the table as said Warpriest, or a semi-optimized Bard or Inquisitor would.

[Eldonauran]

I am not here to argue the specific merits of the kineticist class. I was responding to the OP towards the positive: that kineticists are worth learning about and using at the table. They aren't the best at what they do (damage and limited utility) and they are by no means even close to the worst. They have their own flavor and bring their own kind of tactics to encounter and challenge the enemies and the party.

Arguing over whether or not they can be less optimized than other classes is simply not an argument I want to get involved in because there is massive table variation and what happens, or is usual at your table, might have zero impact at mine. Not everyone plays to be the best at what they do, and not playing that way does not make you "bad at your job", just not efficient as the over-achievers.

If you WANT to get into a "build-off" to see who can swing the biggest numbers, I'll pass. The more important factor at my table is how well the team performs, rather than individuals in a vacuum.

[Rynjin]

I am not here to argue the specific merits of the kineticist class. I was responding to the OP towards the positive: that kineticists are worth learning about and using at the table. They aren't the best at what they do (damage and limited utility) and they are by no means even close to the worst. They have their own flavor and bring their own kind of tactics to encounter and challenge the enemies and the party.

Arguing over whether or not they can be less optimized than other classes is simply not an argument I want to get involved in because there is massive table variation and what happens, or is usual at your table, might have zero impact at mine. Not everyone plays to be the best at what they do, and not playing that way does not make you "bad at your job", just not efficient as the over-achievers.

If you WANT to get into a "build-off" to see who can swing the biggest numbers, I'll pass. The more important factor at my table is how well the team performs, rather than individuals in a vacuum.

It's not really a build-off thing; maybe we have different metrics of what is "worth learning".

The Kineticist, to me, is not a very rewarding class. It doesn't highly perform, it doesn't offer any new playstyle other classes do (especially when you take into account 3rd party material), and it's not very fun to play, being based around several frustrating mechanics.

So, from the perspective of the OP, who has trouble understanding how the class works...I don't think it's worth expending effort to try it. The reward for spending the time to wrap your brain around a class you don't grok should be a fun, interesting, unique, and/or powerful class (like the Occultist), not the state the Kineticist is in.

[Eldonauran]

It's not really a build-off thing; maybe we have different metrics of what is "worth learning".Indeed.


The Kineticist, to me, is not a very rewarding class. It doesn't highly perform, it doesn't offer any new playstyle other classes do (especially when you take into account 3rd party material), and it's not very fun to play, being based around several frustrating mechanics.That is your personal preference and completely valid... But has no bearing outside of that sphere of experience. For someone who does not use 3rd party (such as myself) or has no interest in learning the additional mechanics of the 3rd party (myself as well), discounting the kineticist because something else does it better in 3rd party has about zero influential value.


So, from the perspective of the OP, who has trouble understanding how the class works...I don't think it's worth expending effort to try it. The reward for spending the time to wrap your brain around a class you don't grok should be a fun, interesting, unique, and/or powerful class (like the Occultist), not the state the Kineticist is in.Again, personal opinion is quite valid. It doesn't have to devolve into an argument for or against the class itself. I find the kineticist quite fun and interesting, but that stems from having a different approach to it than yourself (I assume).

At one time, I wrinkled my nose at the class too, but not because it was hard to understand. I saw nothing that caught my eye as being amazing. It wasn't until I allowed a player in my games to use one that I started to see its potential. It is a fairly well made chassis, a foundation to work other abilities into in clever and ingenious ways. It needs ZERO feats to work. It is a great blank slate with damage potential built in. You aren't going to see that just looking at the class. Try slapping a variant multiclass onto the kineticist and see where it takes you. Dip a few levels into another class and give it a gimmick. Your damage is going to be just fine.

[Blackhawk748]

I'd say no. In my brief read of it I wasn't liking what I was seeing. Combine that with it all being worded in this extremely strange fashion and I would say skip it and use that effort to learn the entire Spheres of Power system, which will basically do what the Kineticist does but better.

[Krazzman]

I would think it depends on what your table is like. In a Gestalt game? Certainly worth learning for keeping options open. A high optimization table? Better focus on other stuff.

For me the class is certainly one I would like to play (at least the niche it deals in) but I just compare it too much to the Warlock which is still one of my favourite 3.5 classes... and our current play speed certainly doesn't help too...

[Kurald Galain]

Sure, they match the damage output of a kineticist with feat investments. I did say that "any well optimized" character could do that same thing. "Basic investments" are still optimization, even when they are well known.

There is a wide gap between "basic investments" and "well optimized". Sticking a few archery-themed core feats on an archer is so bleedingly obvious that most groups wouldn't call it optimization in the first place. It's not relevant to compare kinny-without-feats to archer-without-feats because nobody plays an archer-without-feats.

[Particle_Man]

I enjoyed my pure geokineticist dwarf, but I guess I am a dissenting voice here. Also, I kinda like the flavour of earth not being acid, but, well, earth, stones, metal, and the like.

[Bucky]

Yeah, geokinnies are nice because of their battlefield-reshaping abilities. Archery is one thing, but the ability to make your own cover while shooting blasts that aren't affected by it is a trump in an archery contest.



It's like I said: Kineticists are hard to **** up (nearly impossible, in fact).


The easy way to mess one up is to take burn too aggressively.

[Eldonauran]

There is a wide gap between "basic investments" and "well optimized". Sticking a few archery-themed core feats on an archer is so bleedingly obvious that most groups wouldn't call it optimization in the first place. It's not relevant to compare kinny-without-feats to archer-without-feats because nobody plays an archer-without-feats.
And yet, it is still a matter of DEFINITIONS, aka personal opinion. You can slap a few archery related feats on a kineticist, hand them a bow, and they will perform just about as well as that archer, without using their blasts, with better crowd control. Then, you give that kineticist a Conductive Weapon enhancement on that bow, and suddenly their damage spike jumps. You build THAT kineticist properly (little bit of multiclassing) and you can start reining down Ranged sneak attacks with rapid shot/many shot modified by their energize weapon blast (form), and arcing one of those shots with the full effect of one of their energy blasts., all without using a single point of burn. And, if to top that, you can easily step into the healer role with kinetic healer/healing burst/etc wild talents.

My stance remains that the kineticist is a great chassis to build off of. If you disagree, fine. Don't use them.

[Aldrakan]

I say no. I've built a few as an exercise, and it's invariably one of the most aggravating classes to build while producing lackluster results. The class is a mess.
Compared with a similarly-complicated class like the occultist it takes more time to grasp your options (notably there's no quick way to read the infusions available to your element); it feels bad that doing almost anything besides a pretty basic blast requires hitting yourself in the face, even defensive abilities; the progression on abilities is too slow and wonky besides (without burning a feat you don't get to select a 3rd level infusion until 9th level when you have access to 4th level infusions anyway); flavorwise it also clashes with an occult setting (spirits! subtlety! mental manipulation! yelling really loud while glowing like a firework!); and some of the elements are underdeveloped (note the improved elemental whispers talent, which grants you an elemental familiar unless you're a void or wood kineticist in which case it does nothing because paizo didn't print those elementals).

[Bucky]

As a GM, the Kineticist class has a couple of builds in my "too unfair to actually use against PCs" bin - both ultra-attrition strategies.

[Florian]

The easy way to mess one up is to take burn too aggressively.

Not even then. At least when you go the switch-hitter route and also pack a decent weapon that packs a wallop (or vice versa, Pack a regular bow and wield kinetic weaponry. I would never recommend relying only on blasts). Elemental Overflow also has practical uses. (Yes, I repeat myself: This is one of the reasons _not_ to think about the Warlock and typical Warlock tactics when talking about the Kineticist.)

[Bucky]

Using burn-augmented blasts instead of weapon attacks is just another degree of "too aggressively".

[Powerdork]

(without burning a feat you don't get to select a 3rd level infusion until 9th level when you have access to 4th level infusions anyway)

The text of Expanded Element says this isn't the case if you double down on your primary element, since it comes at 7th level and 15th level (each being an infusion gap).


If the kineticist chooses to expand her understanding of an element she already has, she gains an additional utility wild talent or infusion of her choice from that element, as if from her infusion or wild talent class feature, as appropriate.

Not that I'm saying this makes the class intuitive.

[Aldrakan]

The text of Expanded Element says this isn't the case if you double down on your primary element, since it comes at 7th level and 15th level (each being an infusion gap).



Not that I'm saying this makes the class intuitive.

Oh, that's why I was initially thinking it was 7th level, which still seems slow when wizards get their third level effect at 5th, sorcerers at 6th. Checked the class chart for infusions and missed that they have a separate class feature that offers the option to get an infusion.

[Particle_Man]

I have heard that there is a pretty good lock-down melee build with kineticist although it seems a bit counter-intuitive since most people think of it as a blaster first.

[Rynjin]

Using burn-augmented blasts instead of weapon attacks is just another degree of "too aggressively".

If the """"all day blaster"""" class needs to conserve resources to the point of not being a blaster most of the time, you've got an issue.

[Snow_Blind]

I currently GM for a kineticist, and I got to roll up a few NPC kineticists myself fairly recently. While I don't think I am quite as down on the class as Rynjin is, it has serious problems, and I have no intention of ever touching the class again personally.

The short of it is this: if you wanted to run an energy attack slinging PC and you don't want to be a spellcaster and you are willing to tolerate the bookkeeping that comes along with a class that has far too many overly complicated moving parts and you are willing to persevere through understanding the mechanical disaster zone of a class that is the kineticist, then sure, give it a whirl. Power wise, it is a competent martial with a few utility tricks up it's sleeve that martials don't usually get, and you can definitely do worse than play one as a PC. On the other hand, if you want to learn how kineticists work so you can throw them at your PCs, then don't bother. They the most painfully complicated NPC characters I have ever written up by a disturbing margin (complicated to build, complicated to write up in a useable way, complicated to run), and I generally roll up NPCs that look like reasonably well optimized PCs.

[Calthropstu]

The kineticist in one of our games got STUPID damage. DSP put out an addendum to the kineticist that makes them very competitive. The wall power makes for amazing crowd control. In fact, it is one of very few scalable wall type powers in the game. To be fair, our kineticist was very good at optimizing. But with his character, he was very much our primary damage dealer, outstripping my psion (albeit barely, and my psion had plenty of save or sucks that the kineticist just couldn't match) as well as our melee members.

At lvl 12 he was throwing something along the lines of 150-200 damage on a crit.

[Rynjin]

The kineticist in one of our games got STUPID damage. DSP put out an addendum to the kineticist that makes them very competitive. The wall power makes for amazing crowd control. In fact, it is one of very few scalable wall type powers in the game. To be fair, our kineticist was very good at optimizing. But with his character, he was very much our primary damage dealer, outstripping my psion (albeit barely, and my psion had plenty of save or sucks that the kineticist just couldn't match) as well as our melee members.

At lvl 12 he was throwing something along the lines of 150-200 damage on a crit.

The DSP Kineticist archetype is pretty rad, yeah. The only issue is it's focused on Kinetic Blade,which is already the stronger DPS option. It's also a HUGE boost to damage because they can stack the extra d6s from Mithral Current or Elemental Flux Maneuvers to both melee and ranged Blasts, and ESPECIALLY Solar Wind for ranged Blasting with Boosts like Aurora Break.

The archetype basically doubles a Kineticist's damage output before Burn even comes into play, making them far more palatable, and powerful.

[Kurald Galain]

the ability to make your own cover while shooting blasts that aren't affected by it is a trump in an archery contest.
But not if your enemy is able to move and/or target your allies. Nice in theory, not so much in practice.


And yet, it is still a matter of DEFINITIONS
No, it's a matter of MATH. Because you can CALCULATE such things.


You can slap a few archery related feats on a kineticist, hand them a bow, and they will perform just about as well as that archer, without using their blasts, with better crowd control.
No, he'll perform worse than any class that has better class features (e.g. rogue, ranger, barbarian, paladin). But it's pretty ironic that the best way to play a kinny is to either ignore all his class features and give him a bow, or to turn his blast into a melee weapon and play him like a regular swordsmen. The best tactic is to ignore as much of the class as possible.


If the """"all day blaster"""" class needs to conserve resources to the point of not being a blaster most of the time, you've got an issue.
Yep :)

[Psyren]

Is it worth spending any more effort to understand, or is it best to simply pass it by? Note that I’m not trying to “do” anything in particular; I’m just wondering if the class brings anything unique and useful that’s worth spending the extra time on.

That entirely depends on you and the time you have available. For me, there's a bunch more classes (particularly 3PP stuff like Spheres or Pactmaker) and systems (like Starfinder and 5e) that are higher on my priority list than grokking Kinny. If your goal is mastery of Pathfinder 1st-party material, then parsing every 1st-party class would put that higher on your list than mine.

[Eldonauran]

No, it's a matter of MATH. Because you can CALCULATE such things.Again, no, how you want to DEFINE something stems from how you want to perceive the situation. If you want to compare math, we can do that with a few builds to see how the numbers fall, however as I said earlier, I am not interested in who can swing the biggest amount of damage. A kineticist can be quite efficient at dealing damage and fulfilling the same role as any half-competent damage dealer, and do even better than 'half-competent" if you use the same level of optimization. If you are playing games that turn the CR system on its head and send it home crying, then I have to assume that you are playing beyond the scope of my argument.


No, he'll perform worse than any class that has better class features (e.g. rogue, ranger, barbarian, paladin). But it's pretty ironic that the best way to play a kinny is to either ignore all his class features and give him a bow, or to turn his blast into a melee weapon and play him like a regular swordsmen. The best tactic is to ignore as much of the class as possible.There is no NEED to ignore his class features. You can use his class features in combination with a bow and the archery line of feats, just like you can with melee oriented feats, or you could use him straight out of the box and perform just fine in the damage area and focus his feats on skills and other less combat oriented areas. Personally, I find it more than fair to have a class that requires a certain level of complexity and resource management (blasts are free until you try to jack them up with infusions, and it actually mitigated in later levels) in order to have a fairly solid floor/foundation for their power level. It might not be for everyone but that is irrelevant to me offering my opinion on whether or not I find it worth learning about.

[torrasque666]

A kineticist who runs out of burn will still have more damage dealing capability than a blaster caster who runs out of spells slots. And when you factor in the amount of ways they have to reduce burn cost, or increase the amount of burn they can take, they're relatively on par with the amount of spell slots that an equal level caster will have.

[Rynjin]

A kineticist who runs out of burn will still have more damage dealing capability than a blaster caster who runs out of spells slots. And when you factor in the amount of ways they have to reduce burn cost, or increase the amount of burn they can take, they're relatively on par with the amount of spell slots that an equal level caster will have.

This is a common misconception a lot of people, including Paizo's devs, have.

Lack of resources/"all day" capacity is not as valuable as it seems. It's not entirely worthless, but is severely overly valued by people.

Unless your ENTIRE PARTY is resource free, your ability to keep functioning afterward is largely irrelevant. You rest when a lot of the party is spent regardless, leaving your effective operational time the same as everyone else. When your casters are out if spells, pushing on is a recipe for TPK. Most classes in the game have a resource to juggle as well; Rage, Bombs, Ki, etc. If all else fails, HP is a finite resource as well, which is impossible to replenish in a timely fashion without magic.

So the Kineticist being able to push on without resources doesn't really matter in the grand scheme.

[torrasque666]

My point was actually more that a Kineticists burn is less of a limiting factor than most would assume. At least, no more than a regular blaster caster's spell slots.

I mean, after level 6 you can outright ignore all blast infusions with a burn cost of 1 or less. Take a move action to Gather Power and you can ignore up to 2 points of burn. And that amount only goes up as you level, as does your burn capacity.

[exelsisxax]

My point was actually more that a Kineticists burn is less of a limiting factor than most would assume. At least, no more than a regular blaster caster's spell slots.

I mean, after level 6 you can outright ignore all blast infusions with a burn cost of 1 or less. Take a move action to Gather Power and you can ignore up to 2 points of burn. And that amount only goes up as you level, as does your burn capacity.

But if you do that your damage output is garbage and you have virtually no utility. Kineticists can't keep up with any half-optimized martial without expending burn and having high elemental overflow. If you keep up with a competent fighter or barb, you have less staying power than casters.

[Bucky]

Unless your ENTIRE PARTY is resource free, your ability to keep functioning afterward is largely irrelevant. You rest when a lot of the party is spent regardless, leaving your effective operational time the same as everyone else.

It matters proportional to the range of encounters you can solo without spending significant resources. Kineticists' range isn't particularly wide, but it's there if you build for it.

[Rynjin]

It matters proportional to the range of encounters you can solo without spending significant resources. Kineticists' range isn't particularly wide, but it's there if you build for it.

I'd be hard pressed to think of many encounters a Kinetecist can solo sans resource spending. I'm curious which ones you know of besides any swarm?

[Bucky]

"I wait until I can't see the rest of the party, then rocket up to 400 feet above it and pelt it with Extreme Range infused basic blasts until it dies or goes away."

[exelsisxax]

"I wait until I can't see the rest of the party, then rocket up to 400 feet above it and pelt it with Extreme Range infused basic blasts until it dies or goes away."

Cool, the wizard has been doing that for 4 levels, except on the days where he decided to be a necromancer, or the days he bound angels and demons to his will, or the days he decided to reshape the battlefield on a whim, or the days he decided to try and mind control everyone.

[Bucky]

If the kineticist wants to do it merely as well as a level 6 wizard, she can do so by level 7. And, more to the point, won't run out of spell slots if there are 3 soloable encounters.

[Rynjin]

Cool, the wizard has been doing that for 4 levels, except on the days where he decided to be a necromancer, or the days he bound angels and demons to his will, or the days he decided to reshape the battlefield on a whim, or the days he decided to try and mind control everyone.

Nah, he's got a point; in that exact weird circumstance the Kineticist has the edge.

[exelsisxax]

If the kineticist wants to do it merely as well as a level 6 wizard, she can do so by level 7. And, more to the point, won't run out of spell slots if there are 3 soloable encounters.

Because (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/aeon/aeon-theletos)nothing (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/archon/archon-legion)can (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/azata/lillend)fly (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/magical-beasts/sphinx/criosphinx)at (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/demon/demon-shadow)CR (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/demon/succubus)7 (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/devil/devil-salikotal)or (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/dragons/half-dragon-basilisk-black)above (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/dragons/dragon/chromatic-black/young-black-dragon). Nope (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/magical-beasts/dragonne), definitely (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/elemental/elemental-air/huge-air-elemental/)nothing (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/ghost)can (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/protean/protean-naunet)actually (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/psychopomp/psychopomp-vanth)fight (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/animals/pterosaur/pterosaur-quetzalcoatlus)a thing (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/sceaduinar) that (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/soul-eater)can (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/spectre)fly (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/vilkacis).

that's about half the CR 7 bestiary(I left out the loads of dragons and elementals) with a natural flight speed, no casting at all, and you are not going to get 3 rounds of flying into position to snipe dragons with a 300' charge distance.(hint: there's only more dragons at higher level). And of course, this is pretending that you are doing all this above ground, with forewarning of the opponents, and they don't just burrow/swim/teleport/stealth away from your impotent kinny. I remain unimpressed.

[torrasque666]

Cool, the wizard has been doing that for 4 levels, except on the days where he decided to be a necromancer, or the days he bound angels and demons to his will, or the days he decided to reshape the battlefield on a whim, or the days he decided to try and mind control everyone.
Wizards win, what else is new?

[Eldonauran]

Because (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/aeon/aeon-theletos)nothing (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/archon/archon-legion)can (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/azata/lillend)fly (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/magical-beasts/sphinx/criosphinx)at (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/demon/demon-shadow)CR (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/demon/succubus)7 (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/devil/devil-salikotal)or (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/dragons/half-dragon-basilisk-black)above (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/dragons/dragon/chromatic-black/young-black-dragon). Nope (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/magical-beasts/dragonne), definitely (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/elemental/elemental-air/huge-air-elemental/)nothing (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/ghost)can (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/protean/protean-naunet)actually (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/psychopomp/psychopomp-vanth)fight (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/animals/pterosaur/pterosaur-quetzalcoatlus)a thing (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/sceaduinar) that (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/soul-eater)can (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/spectre)fly (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/vilkacis).

that's about half the CR 7 bestiary(I left out the loads of dragons and elementals) with a natural flight speed, no casting at all, and you are not going to get 3 rounds of flying into position to snipe dragons with a 300' charge distance.(hint: there's only more dragons at higher level). And of course, this is pretending that you are doing all this above ground, with forewarning of the opponents, and they don't just burrow/swim/teleport/stealth away from your impotent kinny. I remain unimpressed.One assumes that said kineticist isn't going to do something so stupid as to try and solo a flying mob with that tactic. Should that even have been brought up? We are assuming a moderately intelligent person is behind the controls of said character, yes?

[Bucky]

I fully admitted going in that the range of encounters a Kinetist can solo is narrow. This is simply a high-tier dueling tactic with a medium build-resource investment. If it's inapplicable, the party doesn't lose, they just have to use resources.

That said, it is a high tier dueling tactic - an opponent must have a specific counter or they're totally helpless. An optimized CR9 version of this concept is in my "encounters too nasty to use against a party whose level = its CR" file - this version attacks from such a high altitude that range "long" spells with caster level 9 won't reach it.

[Gnaeus]

The kineticist in one of our games got STUPID damage. DSP put out an addendum to the kineticist that makes them very competitive. The wall power makes for amazing crowd control. In fact, it is one of very few scalable wall type powers in the game. To be fair, our kineticist was very good at optimizing. But with his character, he was very much our primary damage dealer, outstripping my psion (albeit barely, and my psion had plenty of save or sucks that the kineticist just couldn't match) as well as our melee members.

At lvl 12 he was throwing something along the lines of 150-200 damage on a crit.

Here’s the thing though.

If you have DSP, you have Vizier. A Vizier can easily do those numbers, ranged touch force damage, without burn or all the bad writing that is Kenny. With easy options that you can switch to in play for any type of elemental damage, line or cone. With utility powers that beat Kenny, and are also customizable daily. With some of the best item support in the game. A Vizier does shoot magic all day from bottom T2/top T3. Kenny does it from bottom T4/Top T5, with recourse to a flow chart every time you want to use your powers, and the ability to blast yourself unconscious.

I don’t think I’d bring up DSP if I wanted to talk up Kenny.

[Rhedyn]

But if you do that your damage output is garbage and you have virtually no utility. Kineticists can't keep up with any half-optimized martial without expending burn and having high elemental overflow. If you keep up with a competent fighter or barb, you have less staying power than casters.
I've played the Telekinetic before At level 5 (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BKfYkfBmg1Jg5FZhCnaQGM6ZudAnR0Ikrmn6p4JOUK4/edit) and At level 9 (https://docs.google.com/document/d/15n9MMivj9rdd_WoAGvMLEoocEt0dtbxrBmaWIWUH4_I/edit)

A big empowered blast is net burn-free and does plenty of damage. Though one complaint with the class is how I feel the need to min/max my dex/con stats to stay competitive. But aside from the that, the damage is solid and brings way more utility than a rogue. None of the other elements appealed to me as much and the "at-will" touch attacks are just not worth it. (Especially when I can't call them Eldritch Blast)

[Gnaeus]

I've played the Telekinetic before At level 5 (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BKfYkfBmg1Jg5FZhCnaQGM6ZudAnR0Ikrmn6p4JOUK4/edit) and At level 9 (https://docs.google.com/document/d/15n9MMivj9rdd_WoAGvMLEoocEt0dtbxrBmaWIWUH4_I/edit)

A big empowered blast is net burn-free and does plenty of damage. Though one complaint with the class is how I feel the need to min/max my dex/con stats to stay competitive. But aside from the that, the damage is solid and brings way more utility than a rogue. None of the other elements appealed to me as much and the "at-will" touch attacks are just not worth it. (Especially when I can't call them Eldritch Blast)

Kind of net burn free. Remember, when you are using gather power to mitigate burn:
If a Ranger gets AOOed or ready actioned by a hidden enemy he eats the damage and takes his shots
If a wizard gets AOOed or ready actioned he makes a concentration check to avoid losing his spell.
If Kenny fails his concentration check (and remember, this is a big, flashy full round display) he explodes and take non-healable burn damage.

Also, looks to me like your damage is shut down by common DR types. You bypass magic, but every level 5 muggle has a magic weapon. But you don’t beat any other DR.

Also, explain this utility. I looked at your sheet and I don’t see it myself. What do you have at level 5 that compensates for the other 6 skill points per level and rogue talents?

[Rhedyn]

Also, explain this utility. I looked at your sheet and I don’t see it myself. What do you have at level 5 that compensates for the other 6 skill points per level and rogue talents?

I personally get a lot of mileage out of telekinetic haul, finesse, and range.

At mid levels you can fly, heal, and create cover

And then there is at-will invisibility and animating objects at higher levels, all of which I find much more useful than a few skill points in skills that you are worse at than other party members (Kineticist is still great at dex skills).

Still, not worth learning the class, but it's not useless.

[Andor13]

I've played the Telekinetic before At level 5 (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BKfYkfBmg1Jg5FZhCnaQGM6ZudAnR0Ikrmn6p4JOUK4/edit) and At level 9 (https://docs.google.com/document/d/15n9MMivj9rdd_WoAGvMLEoocEt0dtbxrBmaWIWUH4_I/edit)

A big empowered blast is net burn-free and does plenty of damage. Though one complaint with the class is how I feel the need to min/max my dex/con stats to stay competitive. But aside from the that, the damage is solid and brings way more utility than a rogue. None of the other elements appealed to me as much and the "at-will" touch attacks are just not worth it. (Especially when I can't call them Eldritch Blast)


Also, explain this utility. I looked at your sheet and I don’t see it myself. What do you have at level 5 that compensates for the other 6 skill points per level and rogue talents?

Personally I'm more curious as to why a 5th level character is carting around 80 spoons in a bag of holding.

[Gnaeus]

I personally get a lot of mileage out of telekinetic haul, finesse, and range.

At mid levels you can fly, heal, and create cover

And then there is at-will invisibility and animating objects at higher levels, all of which I find much more useful than a few skill points in skills that you are worse at than other party members (Kineticist is still great at dex skills).

Still, not worth learning the class, but it's not useless.

So at level 5 this utility has not materialized

You heal, by granting unhealable burn to you or target. That’s way worse than a rogue UMDing a wand. And you get worse than normal invisibility at higher level. Cool.

That is not as good as rogue. On any metric.

[Krazzman]

Personally I'm more curious as to why a 5th level character is carting around 80 spoons in a bag of holding.

To throw at people? Maybe they were found as loot and he decided to keep them as ammunition?

[Rhedyn]

So at level 5 this utility has not materialized Umm no, "I personally get a lot of mileage out of telekinetic haul, finesse, and range." is all by level 5 is is far more useful than anything the rogue does differently at level 5.

And yeah the Heal gives burn, and well I think we were running that you could empower the heal (which might not be kosher), sooo it made for a decent in-combat heal when I used it.

But really, beating the Pathfinder rogue is a no-contest. Even adapts and warriors are more useful. Unchained rogue is at least more useful than Warriors.

[exelsisxax]

Umm no, "I personally get a lot of mileage out of telekinetic haul, finesse, and range." is all by level 5 is is far more useful than anything the rogue does differently at level 5.

And yeah the Heal gives burn, and well I think we were running that you could empower the heal (which might not be kosher), sooo it made for a decent in-combat heal when I used it.

But really, beating the Pathfinder rogue is a no-contest. Even adapts and warriors are more useful. Unchained rogue is at least more useful than Warriors.

1. You can't do that. (edit: even if you could metakinese non-blasts, you actually can't even pay the burn cost at level 5, so you double can't do that)
2. That doubles the burn for less than double the heal, which makes it terrible.

You must be running in a very low-op group for that tactic to not obviously suck.

[Eldonauran]

You must be running in a very low-op group for that tactic to not obviously suck.Or a group that plays a lot closer to the core/assumed optimization level of the APs or the CR system (which is not much optimization, really). Whether or not that 'sucks' depends entirely our your own perspective and pedestal you want to stand on.

[Kurald Galain]

And that's a good example of how cool Avatar fluff runs in the face of annoying mechanical restrictions.

"You can create cover" isn't quite accurate. To be more precise, for a standard action, you can cover one edge of a single square. So while that certainly sounds fun, with the line-of-sight rules that's actually pretty useless in any combat that's not set in a 5' wide corridor. At least the wizard/druid spell Expeditious Construction has the decency of being 10' - 20' wide.

Likewise, that you're better than a caster who ran out of spells is not quite accurate either: in practice, PF casters simply don't run out of spells.

[Rhedyn]

1. You can't do that. (edit: even if you could metakinese non-blasts, you actually can't even pay the burn cost at level 5, so you double can't do that)
2. That doubles the burn for less than double the heal, which makes it terrible.

You must be running in a very low-op group for that tactic to not obviously suck.
You can't reduce the utility burn but we did allow reducing the empower burn with Gather Power.

I think I vaguely remember some argument that you couldn't use Gather Power for metekinesis, but I am fairly certain a dev clarified that you could at some point.

I don't particularly care for the RAW intricacies of the Kineticist anymore. PF games are so rare for me now that things much more functional and cooler are on my play list.

I'll go so far to say the Urogue is at least better designed than the kineticist. Way less crunch for what it does, even if what it does is less.

[upho]

Or a group that plays a lot closer to the core/assumed optimization level of the APs or the CR system (which is not much optimization, really). Whether or not that 'sucks' depends entirely our your own perspective and pedestal you want to stand on.Thing is, pretty much any and every other PC class can be built to suit with that optimization level. (At least if we're talking about most of the low- to mid-level play in APs. I mean, yes a few other classes may be short-changed enough in terms of utility/out-of-combat options they actually cannot possibly proceed in APs without outside help, and even in some APs run as written quite a few classes are simply not capable of dealing with the higher level combat challenges.)

The problem with the kinny isn't just that it's very difficult to build to suit with a game having just a tad higher optimization level, and impossible to build to suit with one having a substantially higher optimization level (I seriously doubt the kinny's ceiling is higher than the fighter's or the rogue's). It's also that the kinny requires the player learns a huge pile of poorly written complex and class-unique mechanics to achieve pretty much exactly what the ranger or fighter does with less than a tenth of the mechanical complexity.

In other words, I think it's a class with an almost non-existent target group of players. Giving it to an inexperienced player just runs a very high risk of ruining their game experience and impression of PF, while a more experienced player can rather easily pick another class and simply build it to the same power level and flavor. The ones remaining are the hard-core enthusiasts who are mostly just looking to try a class they haven't played before.

So no, I definitely don't think the kinny is worth learning for an overwhelmingly large majority of players and GMs.

The shifter is also a pretty awful class, but at least it's nearly as simple and straight-forward to understand, build and play as it gets, and it's certainly also viable in an AP run as written.

[Rynjin]

You can't reduce the utility burn but we did allow reducing the empower burn with Gather Power.

I think I vaguely remember some argument that you couldn't use Gather Power for metekinesis, but I am fairly certain a dev clarified that you could at some point.

Seifter absolutely intended for Metakinesis to be reduced by Burn. I think they made an actual FAQ about it, and it was clarified repeatedly during the playtest and on the forums soon after release.

Ah, here we are:


Kineticist Gather Power: I know that gather power can only be used on blast wild talents, but which of the things that add to blast wild talents can I reduce with gather power? Infusions are clear in their description, but the others are not.
You can reduce infusions, metakinesis, and even the 1 extra burn for using a blast you don’t possess with omnikinesis. All of these add to the blast’s cost. You still can’t reduce utility talents, including the extra burn cost for swapping out a utility talent with omnikinesis, unless you use internal buffer instead.

As far as the overarching discussion, Telekinetic and Geokinetic are definitely the ways to go to get the most out of the class. They're the only ones with really practical utility talents...though as far as Telekinetic Finesse goes I'd probably just dip Kineticist for two levels and go the rest something else if that's the main fun I was getting out of the class.

Geo is the one with the big **** damage potential of all of them (neither being stymied by DR like the other Physical blasts, or subject to Spell resistance like the energy blasts), and I had fun playing one at level 7 in a oneshot. So I could definitely see a combo of Geo and Telekinetic being the exception that proves the rule for the class.

Everything else swiftly descends in usefulness though, from the insanely limited application of the Electricity blasts for Aero (they didn't even have Spray until I mentioned it on the forums when I was making one and Seifter got it onto the docket for a quick Errata), to the fact that Pyro doesn't get access to Fireball until level 13(!!). It's a collection of little things that makes the class disappointing. not just the big picture issues.

[exelsisxax]

You can't reduce the utility burn but we did allow reducing the empower burn with Gather Power.

I think I vaguely remember some argument that you couldn't use Gather Power for metekinesis, but I am fairly certain a dev clarified that you could at some point.

I don't particularly care for the RAW intricacies of the Kineticist anymore. PF games are so rare for me now that things much more functional and cooler are on my play list.

I'll go so far to say the Urogue is at least better designed than the kineticist. Way less crunch for what it does, even if what it does is less.

But you can't use metakinesis for utility talents, so it doesn't matter if a dev is saying something that disagrees with RAW. You straight up cannot use the combo you described.

And that's the only real argument for the kineticist: if you don't understand how it works, you end up playing something significantly stronger than the class actually is, because you do not know about the rules holding it back.

[Rhedyn]

But you can't use metakinesis for utility talents, so it doesn't matter if a dev is saying something that disagrees with RAW. You straight up cannot use the combo you described.

And that's the only real argument for the kineticist: if you don't understand how it works, you end up playing something significantly stronger than the class actually is, because you do not know about the rules holding it back.

I think you are being hyperbolic. Interpreting that meta could be applied to a utility power that uses your blast damage (by applying to the blast damage) isn't all that crazy nor would RAW-lawyering one talent down in power negate the class.

Telekinetic finesse let's you do small things, Telekinetic haul let's you do big things. The Range talent even applies. If that doesn't solve tons of problems for you, then PC harder.

[Bucky]

This thread has reminded me that kineticists have a lot of cool options, even if any given build only uses a couple of them.

I think utility talents are a lot more significant than most of the thread seems to. Here are some of the highlights:

* <various levels> - at will subsets of Telekinesis
* Level 1 - Gust of Wind at will
* Level 2 - Grease or whispering wind, as the spell, at will
* Level 4 - Darkvision as a class feature
* Level 6 - Perpetual flight or at-will invisibility. Haste, but with a burn cost.
* Level 7-10 - Bombard opponents from outside the range of almost all spells
* Level 8 - Battlefield sculpting.
* Level 10 - Perpetual earth glide or summon an endless stream of minions (one at a time)
* Level 12 - Save or Lose, and concentrate to repeat the save every round
* Level 12 - Effective tactical teleportation - move 120 as a standard anywhere, or 480' to a surface in LOS. Double these for air users.
* Level 13 - Quicken those tactical teleports, but at the cost of some burn
* Level 18 - Earthquake, as the spell, at will, or Tsunami for 1 burn

[Kurald Galain]

I think utility talents are a lot more significant than most of the thread seems to. Here are some of the highlights:
Thank you, it's good to get some specifics in here.

However, it strikes me that most of these "highlights" are available several levels earlier to other classes. Aside from that, most of these cannot be combined on the same build, because of element restrictions.


At will subsets of Telekinesis: Mage Hand is a cantrip, numerous classes get that at-will at level 1. That's nothing special.
Grease at L2 is cool, but the kinny version lasts only one round. That basically means you can trip enemies at-will, but so can any martial with a reach weapon. Not bad, just nothing to write home about either.
Whispering wind at L2 is a ribbon ability, not something you're going to need more than once or twice per day, if that. Having it at will is superfluous.
Darkvision at level 4, but it's easy to get it at level 1 from race, bloodline, animal companion, or eidolon. Kinny is three levels behind.
"Bombard opponents" gets a range of 120', whereas any medium- or long-range spell is going to easily top that.
Battlefield sculpting at level 8, but numerous level-1 spells can already do that. So kinny is four to seven levels behind.
Save or lose at level twelve?! Come on, any caster can do that at level 1, and even the monk's stunning fist is basically save-or-lose at L1.


At-will flight or invis is certainly nice, no argument there. But other than that, in terms of utility you're really not making a strong case here.

[Rhedyn]

At-will flight or invis is certainly nice, no argument there. But other than that, in terms of utility you're really not making a strong case here.

Telekinetic Haul (http://www.aonprd.com/KineticistTalentsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Telekinetic %20Haul) Move 100s to 1000s of lbs of stuff

Basic Telekinesis (http://www.aonprd.com/KineticistTalentsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Basic%20Tel ekinesis) Basically a suped-up mage hand, except it holds liquids and can be extended to medium range for one talent (a much needed one). Extreme range can also be useful is some situations.

Telekinetic Finesse (https://www.aonprd.com/KineticistTalentsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Telekinetic %20Finesse) Oddly has nothing to do with basic telekinesis. You can just sleight of hand or disable device within close range. (It combos later with telekinetic maneuvers to allow for dirty tricks, but that is at best mildly useful).
But yeah stealing things from range or disabling traps from outside their activation range is also good (grab the trait that allows you to disable magical traps).

So what can I do with this? Well when you can lift hundreds of pounds, you can lift objects that people can stand on. People like yourself, some low level, but high action economy flight (and no I don't care if anyone has some rules lawyer reason why that wouldn't work).

You can shape a battlefield, before hand... Only some minor shifts in combat, but you can set up all sorts of nasty problems since you can move basically anything. This only stops being useful when tactics stop mattering, which it really depends on the GM when/if that happens.

You would think blasting 1000-20,000 lbs objects at people would hurt right? Well no, large objects being dropped on people or using the thin aether blast version (where you hit with the actual object) both run into the issue that significantly large objects fall off any table that would estimate their damage, so the results of such things are entirely GM fiat territory. Basically whenever you spend burn on this power, the GM is going to have to close the rule-book and go with his or her gut and determine what the heck happens when you start dropping car sized objects on things/people. Very few abilities justify spending burn on them quite like Telekinetic haul (the minute per level buff spell).

The Problem: Most of what you do with any of this starts running into general rules, like the weights and HP of objects which absolutely no GM or AP really stats out all that well. Things like "Well how long would it take the bad guys to dig through all this dirt in-between them and the party", "Oh he just dropped a safe on a wooden roof, what does that do?", "What would 700 lbs of acid dump on this person due to him and the surrounding?"
Shenanigans, pure endless shenanigans. If your GM isn't on board or worships RAW resolution, then you will be an endless source of frustration (don't bring a telekinetic to such tables) as resolving your actions will take hours out of each game session.

[Bucky]

"Bombard opponents" gets a range of 120', whereas any medium- or long-range spell is going to easily top that.

...which is why I put that perk at the levels where the 480' version becomes available.




You can shape a battlefield, before hand... Only some minor shifts in combat, but you can set up all sorts of nasty problems since you can move basically anything. This only stops being useful when tactics stop mattering, which it really depends on the GM when/if that happens.

Good point - GM style also explains a lot of the divergence.

[Rynjin]

@Rhedyn: Did you miss the part where it takes a full round action to move something 15 feet? Because it follows the base rules for Mage Hand, so you're spending a Standard to activate, and your Move to move it 15 feet.

Doesn't exactly make it a great group flight option, or tactical one for that matter since you can only move loose objects with it.

[Rhedyn]

@Rhedyn: Did you miss the part where it takes a full round action to move something 15 feet? Because it follows the base rules for Mage Hand, so you're spending a Standard to activate, and your Move to move it 15 feet.

Doesn't exactly make it a great group flight option, or tactical one for that matter since you can only move loose objects with it.Well for one, it's 30ft with extended range and two, you do it out of combat.

I personally moved a pillow I was sitting on.

Oh man, group flight is an option isn't? Not a great one, and will probably cost you burn, but yeah I see where you are going with that. (Oh I see, I said "people" and you assumed I meant multiple people when I meant different individual people)

[Rynjin]

Yeah, you get a few thousand pounds, so nothing stopping you from levitating a big rock or a cart or something with everyone in it.

It's just suuuuuuuuuuuper slow until you get Extreme Range (Extended Range makes it 30 feet PER ROUND; you don't get two Move actions since your Standard is spent on concentration, so you're half speed compared to the rest of your party if you fly solo), and even then has a few issues with it being a Concentration effect...so you're completely helpless while doing it, and can be disrupted to drop your whole party to an unfortunate circumstance.

[Rhedyn]

Yeah, you get a few thousand pounds, so nothing stopping you from levitating a big rock or a cart or something with everyone in it.

It's just suuuuuuuuuuuper slow until you get Extreme Range (Extended Range makes it 30 feet PER ROUND; you don't get two Move actions since your Standard is spent on concentration, so you're half speed compared to the rest of your party if you fly solo), and even then has a few issues with it being a Concentration effect...so you're completely helpless while doing it, and can be disrupted to drop your whole party to an unfortunate circumstance.Where it comes more in handy is if you play with filthy mortals or conservative casters and you can move everyone one at a time over large obstacles without anyone spending resources.

Or you can take on structures from unpredicted angles by moving the party one at a time into position (or just some party members).

If I'm burning to carry the party, it's probably slowly hovering us across an army or something. We would be protected from arrows, but not fliers. I can actually see a cool scene where the 7th level party needs to get around an army so they fly over it but have to dramatically fight off any aerial units and any mid level army casters that got mad. (might be kind of boring for the kineticist though).

[Kurald Galain]

Oh man, group flight is an option isn't? Not a great one, and will probably cost you burn, but yeah I see where you are going with that. (Oh I see, I said "people" and you assumed I meant multiple people when I meant different individual people)
That's fair, a kinny can float his entire party several levels before Dimdoor or Communal Air Walk become available. So far that makes the aether kinny the only one with noteworthy utility, as this is also the element with invis and foe throw.


You can shape a battlefield, before hand... Only some minor shifts in combat, but you can set up all sorts of nasty problems since you can move basically anything. This only stops being useful when tactics stop mattering, which it really depends on the GM when/if that happens.
I like this one, it's just that it's exceedingly rare for PCs to choose and alter their battlefields. Almost always, the PCs are the ones attacking, not the ones being attacked.


...which is why I put that perk at the levels where the 480' version becomes available.
Fair enough, I was looking at Eruption which (like a lot of other talents) caps at 120'. You can get 480' on your single-target blast, which is only surpassed by such spells as Fireball, Ice Storm, Entangle, Major Image, Sleet Storm, Burst of Radiance, and Silence. Turns out there's quite a number of long-range spells...

[Bucky]

...which is why you need Air’s Reach too.

[Rynjin]

...which is why you need Air’s Reach too.

Which is kind of inherently the Kineticist's issues in a nutshell: it's a martial class with martial class restrictions trying to be shoved into a caster shaped hole.

As a result, it expends VERY limited resources to replicate tricks casters get either essentially for free (Wizards/Clerics; no limit on spells known) or cheaper (Sorcerers/Oracles; more spells known than the Kineticist has Talents).

The intentional gimping of the Extra Wild Talent Feat exacerbates this issue immensely.

Requiring 3 out of a possible 20 Talents (and locking yourself into a specific element) just to get a marginal and usually irrelevant range advantage (to say nothing of the additional investment of essentially setting Fireball, etc. as a Feat) just isn't really worth it.

Think of this: Anything you can achieve with your three Feat/Talent combo can be achieved by a caster picking up Reach spell. You are investing 3 Talents (which are supposed to be HIGHER VALUE than Feats for the classes that get them or the equivalent) for the effect of a Feat that most casters do not feel is worth taking, and is better replaced by a cheap magic item.

That is bad value. A single Talent, or even Feat, should be worth more to a character than 3000 gp. Much less three of them.

[Rhedyn]

Which is kind of inherently the Kineticist's issues in a nutshell: it's a martial class with martial class restrictions trying to be shoved into a caster shaped hole.

Well if you do "OK" damage and provide some spell-like effects, then you are already pretty useful to the party.

Not in any group that runs Shadowrun-like raids on dungeons where people buff up and then steamroll through rooms (I've been in those kinds of campaigns. 15-minute work day is a hell of a thing).

But martial options tend to be so overwhelmingly bad, that bad casting tends to be more useful.

EDIT: Is this a good time to mention that I find the Medium a much better designed class and all around more useful? No? nvm then.

[Aldrakan]

EDIT: Is this a good time to mention that I find the Medium a much better designed class and all around more useful? No? nvm then.

Well it may not be relevant to the discussion but it did prompt me to give the Medium another look and on further consideration I had dismissed it prematurely, so thanks.

[Powerdork]

Here’s the thing though.

If you have DSP, you have Vizier.

Speaking as someone who's friends with some of DSP's employees a few years back, I've developed... shall we call it nuanced opinions about DSP's content, and let me tell you that I wouldn't loan my players Akashic Mysteries. Sorry to shoot down your argument, but it's flawed and the editor in me cannot let that sit.

[Kurald Galain]

EDIT: Is this a good time to mention that I find the Medium a much better designed class and all around more useful? No? nvm then.

Yes, it is. The ability to retroactively add to any die roll makes them a competent party buffer, and as this has no action cost they can do it in addition to being a capable melee or ranged combatant. Plus they can get tons of utility from the wizard or cleric spell list, when needed. It may not be a great class but it's pretty good overall.

[EldritchWeaver]

Speaking as someone who's friends with some of DSP's employees a few years back, I've developed... shall we call it nuanced opinions about DSP's content, and let me tell you that I wouldn't loan my players Akashic Mysteries. Sorry to shoot down your argument, but it's flawed and the editor in me cannot let that sit.

What are the pitfalls in your opinion?

[upho]

Speaking as someone who's friends with some of DSP's employees a few years back, I've developed... shall we call it nuanced opinions about DSP's content, and let me tell you that I wouldn't loan my players Akashic Mysteries. Sorry to shoot down your argument, but it's flawed and the editor in me cannot let that sit.I'm also wondering about this. I think AM is easily one of the best player books written for PF, and arguably even for 3.5 and PF seen as a whole.

And I've had zero problems with it in my games. Although admittedly none of my players use Radiant Dawn stuff (yet), and there's certainly a lot more room for various rather potent low-cost shenanigans using a combo of AM and RD. But that's mostly on RD, not AM, which I've found extremely well-written, mechanics-wise as well as fluff-wise. Ssalarn clearly knows his stuff, and it truly shows AM was a labor of love.

So why are you calling AM "flawed"?

[RedWarlock]

So why are you calling AM "flawed"?
I don't think they're calling AM flawed, just the argument that if you allow one DSP source, you must automatically allow them all. Supplementary material for a Paizo-made class is one thing, but adding entirely new classes, with new and complex subsystem mechanics, is a step or two beyond.

[upho]

I don't think they're calling AM flawed, just the argument that if you allow one DSP source, you must automatically allow them all. Supplementary material for a Paizo-made class is one thing, but adding entirely new classes, with new and complex subsystem mechanics, is a step or two beyond.I get that, but Metool wrote:
I've developed... shall we call it nuanced opinions about DSP's content, and let me tell you that I wouldn't loan my players Akashic Mysteries.Which is what surprised me. I can certainly understand not wanting to introduce psionics and initiators, not to mention stuff like Bloodforge and Monster Classes, but AM? I mean, to put it bluntly, I'd much rather have AM than core.

[thompur]

I've been playing a Hydro-kineticist in PFS, and a Geo-kineticist in a Second Darkness campaign, and am having a blast(pun intended) with both! In each case I tend to be one of , if not the, biggest damage dealers. Admittedly, most of the other players in SD are not, nor really interested in being, big optimizers. Nor am I, really. Generally, the only burn I take is the usual at the beginning of the day to boost my defenses. With empower, damage is fairly consistant, and hp are not a problem, putting my FCB into it, and taking toughness. Currently 10th level, even with the burn, I have over 100hp. The main worry for kineticists is will saves.

I did have some trouble with deciphering the class at the start. It is not well written, but once you understand how it works, it can be a lot of fun.

[Powerdork]

What are the pitfalls in your opinion?


[That] surprised me. I can certainly understand not wanting to introduce psionics and initiators, not to mention stuff like Bloodforge and Monster Classes, but AM? I mean, to put it bluntly, I'd much rather have AM than core.

Plainly put, there is no place in my own personal game world for soulbinders (per Magic of Incarnum) or Arcane Weavers (with or without the African bent introduced by Akashic Mysteries) or weird artificers (or whatever else fluff you want to tack on) that have non-spell magic that can be wrecked by blades and that they unlock special places on their body for as they gain power, or for the Vaguely Monk-ish Body-Mender, or the Court Wizard What Doesn't Cast Spells But Makes Not-Things Instead, or the Magical Warrior With Ties to Vices or Virtues, or for the new magic and items that must be introduced (and, on my part, designed, because Akashic Mysteries and Steelforge are curiously lacking in interesting or flavorful or even useful magic items for veilweavers, and Magic of Incarnum and Magic Item Compendium are as well) to make it feel like "yes, akasha has been around for long enough that a low-level PC can pick up the basics from either tome or tutor or otherworldly being, or intuitively". After all, I'm not shaping my campaign with the assumption that akasha is a new power to be gifted to special people—if this wondrous magic can be picked up, there will be people looking to pick it up and turn it to their various ends, and I'm certainly not running any villain as someone interested in just one of my PCs, and there's certainly not enough akashic content to have anything worthwhile for opening up to my players with the expectation that they'll all make some use of it.

Compare psionics: There are so many races, classes, traits, powers, feats, and archetypes that emulate cool and useful concepts, and it's so easy to adjust or convert existing items to support psionic players, and there's nothing particularly lore-disruptive about psionics that isn't already lore-disruptive about magic. Regular play still amounts to "big beefy bugbear with bowclub batters and bullies Chumpus Bumpus, wasting about an eighth of his allotted resources, while the Mystic Archery Specialist Elf pincushions the bugbear and the Headstrong Human Highlord Hero struggles to wrestle him", not too far off from a party you'd see with Ultimates in play. Yes, I can put this on the table without question, especially the thoughtfully-designed content by my friends that was written for Psionics Augmented: Occult.

Compare initiators: Melee (or ranged) combatants have special moves they can do, but they still receive benefit from the same items (SORD) and are incentivized to pick up skills that let them be useful outside the dungeon. They're free from the bad design of mainline Pathfinder's combat feats (especially core), and can pick whatever looks cool while still being useful. Yes, I can put this on the table with only a reduction of additional damage dice.

And simply put, there is not enough akashic content out right now that I can give my players everything and let them throw darts. Even if there is good design, it is not diverse enough.

[Psyren]

Yes, it is. The ability to retroactively add to any die roll makes them a competent party buffer, and as this has no action cost they can do it in addition to being a capable melee or ranged combatant. Plus they can get tons of utility from the wizard or cleric spell list, when needed. It may not be a great class but it's pretty good overall.

Yeah, Medium is probably my favorite Paizo original class alongside Alchemist and Magus.

It's sad they dropped the ball so hard with the Kineticist and Shifter, but there are archetypes for other classes that give me what I was wanting to get out of those anyway.

[EldritchWeaver]

<personal campaign setting incompatible>

And simply put, there is not enough akashic content out right now that I can give my players everything and let them throw darts. Even if there is good design, it is not diverse enough.

That's reasonable. Unfortunately, your initial comment sounds like "this material lacks any kind of reasonable balance and just is OP". I can't imagine how I was supposed to get to manage the leap from there to these points.

[Gnaeus]

Speaking as someone who's friends with some of DSP's employees a few years back, I've developed... shall we call it nuanced opinions about DSP's content, and let me tell you that I wouldn't loan my players Akashic Mysteries. Sorry to shoot down your argument, but it's flawed and the editor in me cannot let that sit.

1. DSP content is way better balanced than Paizo content ever was. Vizier is a T2/3 class better balanced than Sorcerer and if your “nuanced opinion” is otherwise you are just wrong. Daevic is a better Paladin. Almost all the PoW stuff is T3. We play with them regularly. There are a few broken powers, but less than core PF.

2. If you can’t use DSP, you probably can’t use DSP kineticist options. If you can use DSP, you have at least 2 better, easier classes for all day blasting, mystic and Vizier.

3. Based on wall of silly text on why better balanced akashics don’t make sense in a magic elf game. Fine. Mystic is also better than kineticist in every meaningful way.

4. Which part of what you wrote doesn’t apply to kineticist? If I don’t want to put well balanced options in my game world because the fluff is written, why bother inserting this mess? Only reason I can think of is to justify geopolitical losers (the goblins are all fire Kennys which is why they lose all their wars.)

[Rhedyn]

Yeah, Medium is probably my favorite Paizo original class alongside Alchemist and Magus.

It's sad they dropped the ball so hard with the Kineticist and Shifter, but there are archetypes for other classes that give me what I was wanting to get out of those anyway.

Whoa, the Kineticist is poorly written and makes little sense in the PF game, but it's an interesting playable class.

Shifters are such complete trash that Warriors may find themselves more useful. Shifters have ribbon garbage abilities, and a weaker-than-druid wildshape. For the most part (cough rogue), PF classes could play with each other more so than 3.5 classes. Shifter straddles Tier 5/6 and I would say more leans to tier 6, which until the Shifter, none of Paizo's PC classes would fall into and all the tier 5 classes have optimal builds (or an unchained version) that lift them into tier 4. It's an embarrassing last addition to Pathfinder and basically killed my optimism for PF2e.

You know your class is garbage when "Warrior with Druid Wildshape" is an infinitely better class than more delivers on your class description than something you actually put effort behind.

[Kurald Galain]

Shifters have ribbon garbage abilities, and a weaker-than-druid wildshape.
Although to be fair, kinny also has ribbon garbage abilities (such as the aforementioned whispering wind at will, or the hilariously low damage L16 maelstrom ability), and a weaker-than-archer ranged attack. One of the main appeals of the kinny is that it gets at-will flight, but the shifter gets that too, and two levels earlier to boot. Reasons like "it's fun to play" or "it resembles a character from my favorite show/movie/book" likewise apply to both classes equally.

So it's a fair description that Paizo "dropped the ball so hard with the Kineticist and Shifter".

[Rhedyn]

Although to be fair, kinny also has ribbon garbage abilities (such as the aforementioned whispering wind at will, or the hilariously low damage L16 maelstrom ability), and a weaker-than-archer ranged attack. One of the main appeals of the kinny is that it gets at-will flight, but the shifter gets that too, and two levels earlier to boot. Reasons like "it's fun to play" or "it resembles a character from my favorite show/movie/book" likewise apply to both classes equally.

So it's a fair description that Paizo "dropped the ball so hard with the Kineticist and Shifter".
The shifter doesn't ever get at-will flight. The best they can ever do is have wis+level >= 24 hours for Wild Shaping into a less than optimal flier form.

Oh it's fair to say that you can build an utterly trash kineticist. You don't have to though and well oiled one can enter tier 3 (but what you are doing to get here tends to interact with less than fleshed out Pathfinder rules). It's the effort you need to get there and the endless rules question you'll create that really push the Kineticist out of "should you bother learning this class?". You really just shouldn't unless you are just really tired of every other class and really want to learn, but if that is the case then you never ask that question to begin with.

I also wouldn't say the main appeal of the Kineticist is at-will flight. That's just the only Iconic Warlock ability it still has.

Shifter doesn't even function like a character on a TV show, nor is it fun to play. Some people have fun with it, but some people have fun with anything.

And I will agree that Paizo dropped the ball with the Kineticist, sure it's basically just a fun but overly-designed homebrew class, that's still infinitely better than the smack to the face that was the Shifter (which seems to be the template class idea for PF2e. Just tons of sucky abilities)

[Powerdork]

1. DSP content is way better balanced than Paizo content ever was. Vizier is a T2/3 class better balanced than Sorcerer and if your “nuanced opinion” is otherwise you are just wrong. Daevic is a better Paladin. Almost all the PoW stuff is T3. We play with them regularly. There are a few broken powers, but less than core PF.
If you actually read my post, you'd recognize that this argument doesn't make sense because my concern about Akashic Mysteries extends mostly to niche rather than balance. The concepts that are represented by the akashic classes and veils are too specific and weird for my table, and there seems to be no desire on the part of Dreamscarred Press to implement more akashic content any time soon. But why not tell me how the daevic does a good job of representing the holy man gifted with the power to heal wounds and maladies, ignore magical disease, protect allies from fear, and summon a noble steed? These are all things that a 5th-level paladin can do by default, and are pretty iconic to the role IMO.


2. If you can’t use DSP, you probably can’t use DSP kineticist options. If you can use DSP, you have at least 2 better, easier classes for all day blasting, mystic and Vizier.
Again, my entire point with the post was, this kind of argument is a failure particularly because there are tables, like mine, that will encourage only select parts of DSP's book line.


3. Based on wall of silly text on why better balanced akashics don’t make sense in a magic elf game. Fine. Mystic is also better than kineticist in every meaningful way.
This is true. I never made a value remark on kineticist. I did imply that mystic makes it to my table without question. Are we agreed that this is a good call? (My personal OC for freeform RP, for reference, is a knight-chandler type mystic. I love it that much.)


4. Which part of what you wrote doesn’t apply to kineticist? If I don’t want to put well balanced options in my game world because the fluff is written, why bother inserting this mess? Only reason I can think of is to justify geopolitical losers (the goblins are all fire Kennys which is why they lose all their wars.)
Yeah, I discourage players from playing the terrible self-harming element class with 5 moving parts just to do a simple wall of fire. What makes you think kineticists are common in my world? What did I do at all to defend the kineticist?

[Gnaeus]

Oh it's fair to say that you can build an utterly trash kineticist. You don't have to though and well oiled one can enter tier 3 (but what you are doing to get here tends to interact with less than fleshed out Pathfinder rules). It's the effort you need to get there and the endless rules question you'll create that really push the Kineticist out of "should you bother learning this class?". You really just shouldn't unless you are just really tired of every other class and really want to learn, but if that is the case then you never ask that question to begin with.

It’s rather easier to say that kineticist is utterly trash but with enough work you can build one that isn’t. Most of the elements are trap options. Most of the decent powers have prerequisites and need to be planned towards (and are usually worse than spells). Even in the places where they theoretically shine (like endurance challenges where casters can’t rest) they usually underperform other options. I’ve built a number for different reasons, and I’ve never played one because every single time I realize I can build with another class that does all the same stuff better. I can build a tier 3 fighter or monk. I can build a tier 3 fighter or monk easier than I can build a tier 3 kineticist. Heck, I can build a T3 Truenamer easier than a kineticist. It’s irredeemable trash but at least it does a handful of things well and all the optifu you need is minmaxing skill checks.

I suppose you aren’t wrong, in the sense that if you died and were trapped in some kind of PFS hellscape in which you could only play first party PF for all eternity and you had fully explored all the other 30+ base classes and all their odd archetypes you would ultimately hit a point where kineticist is your best unexplored option. I’m pretty sure I would be too insane to play by then. But maybe you are made of stronger stuff.

[Kurald Galain]

Most of the elements are trap options.
I suppose that is the most damning part. There are seven different elements and at least four of them (and arguably, six of them) are traps.

[thompur]

Let me start by saying that I am not the sharpest tool in the shed. I'm not a scientist, or an engineer. I work in the theatre. On the other hand, I have been playing D&D and its descendants for over 40 years, so I understand something about how game rules work. I will say that the Kineticist rules as presented in Occult Adventures, are a mess. It took me 3 or 4 reads through to understand the workings of the class. A special shout out to N.Jolly and his Guide to the Kineticist (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1utgJVtJStEtZ8B923VWFYKIx6kbWQS_44zSMOb8rkT0/edit), for helping me discern the class rules.
Once I figured it out, I had a lot of fun with the class.:smallbiggrin:

[Gnaeus]

If you actually read my post, you'd recognize that this argument doesn't make sense because my concern about Akashic Mysteries extends mostly to niche rather than balance. The concepts that are represented by the akashic classes and veils are too specific and weird for my table, and there seems to be no desire on the part of Dreamscarred Press to implement more akashic content any time soon. But why not tell me how the daevic does a good job of representing the holy man gifted with the power to heal wounds and maladies, ignore magical disease, protect allies from fear, and summon a noble steed? These are all things that a 5th-level paladin can do by default, and are pretty iconic to the role IMO.

Yeah, I discourage players from playing the terrible self-harming element class with 5 moving parts just to do a simple wall of fire. What makes you think kineticists are common in my world? What did I do at all to defend the kineticist?

Well, as kurald pointed out, your second text with the ludicrous campaign stuff totally didn’t follow from the first. I think it’s a silly argument anyway, because it’s not like classes have to be equally common everywhere or you have to redesign your world to say there are variant casters in some unexplored corner. But regardless I was responding to your first post and only edited for the second.

You wrote a giant wall of text as to why viziers don’t make sense in your world in a kineticist thread.

Davics heal better than paladins. They remove negative conditions better than paladins (imaculate touch is better than LOH and you can switch your mercy daily.) Love Daevics get a pet at 6 which can specifically be a dragon and which blows Paladin steed out of the water. Horselords greaves lets you summon horses at will. Multiple feats and veils let you boost saves. Pretty much all you can’t do better than the pally is protect allies from fear. But things like crusaders shield make you better at protecting allies from anything else. Benevolence daevics for example can share will save boosting teamwork feats (or other, but we were worried about fear) with allies.

[stack]

Chiming in regarding continued support for Akashic Mysteries. The author of Akashic Mysteries (Michael Sayre / Ssalarn on GitPg) has since released four additional classes though Lost Spheres publishing, the eclipse, nexus, radiant, (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/238407/City-of-7-Seraphs--Akashic-Trinity) and zodiac (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/242464/Classes-of-the-Lost-Spheres-Zodiac). These classes and the new veils that come with them diversify the system significantly. You can check them out on this 3pp wiki.
(http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/akashic-mysteries)
On the subject of this thread, I wager that the nexus in particular makes a better elemental blaster than the kineticist.

[Powerdork]

You wrote a giant wall of text as to why viziers don’t make sense in your world in a kineticist thread.
Because someone chose to say that in any game with psionic occult content, daevics and such can be the only benchmark. I took issue with that specific claim. But let’s agree to put further discussion into a different thread?


Davics heal better than paladins. They remove negative conditions better than paladins (imaculate touch is better than LOH and you can switch your mercy daily.) Love Daevics get a pet at 6 which can specifically be a dragon and which blows Paladin steed out of the water. Horselords greaves lets you summon horses at will. Multiple feats and veils let you boost saves. Pretty much all you can’t do better than the pally is protect allies from fear. But things like crusaders shield make you better at protecting allies from anything else. Benevolence daevics for example can share will save boosting teamwork feats (or other, but we were worried about fear) with allies.
Ah, sweet.

[Rhedyn]

I suppose that is the most damning part. There are seven different elements and at least four of them (and arguably, six of them) are traps.

I think that's fair. I've only really learned how to use the telekinetic and every other build I try to make doesn't seem as effective.

Other Kinetic build: "Oh look I do +50% DPR" or "I have X ability"

Telekinetic: "I cast 'rearrange dungeon' and can do 90% of your tricks with a careful build plus tons of things no other element has access to. So much so, I think the class was going to just be my element (and fit really well in an Occult Adventures book) but was expanded to satisfy some Avatar fans on staff."

I know some people sing the praises of Air or Geo all day, but I think only Geo even begins to come close.

[Manyasone]

I think that's fair. I've only really learned how to use the telekinetic and every other build I try to make doesn't seem as effective.

Other Kinetic build: "Oh look I do +50% DPR" or "I have X ability"

Telekinetic: "I cast 'rearrange dungeon' and can do 90% of your tricks with a careful build plus tons of things no other element has access to. So much so, I think the class was going to just be my element (and fit really well in an Occult Adventures book) but was expanded to satisfy some Avatar fans on staff."

I know some people sing the praises of Air or Geo all day, but I think only Geo even begins to come close.

Wellllll... Light, poison, viscera pop into mind. They are pretty good

[Gnaeus]

Wellllll... Light, poison, viscera pop into mind. They are pretty good

And again, if third party content is included, the number of better options than a kineticist expands exponentially. Heck, you could take Warlock. Nerf it by changing all its blasts to elemental types. And still have a better, easier kineticist.

[Rhedyn]

And again, if third party content is included, the number of better options than a kineticist expands exponentially. Heck, you could take Warlock. Nerf it by changing all its blasts to elemental types. And still have a better, easier kineticist.
Well, you can't necessarily assume all 3rd party content is allowed if some of it is allowed.

A lot of GMs go on a case by case basis. I personally can only attest to how great everything in Ultimate Psionics is and by extension how much I think of any DSP work.

Buuut not every GM is like that. Heck, I know one guy who just doesn't like psionics because they are just better than all the bad classes or any good class that cripple themselves (14 strength, high cha, channel focused, smite-less paladins).

[Bucky]

As a GM, it's worth eventually learning the class because it's useful in a few ways for setting up tactical encounters.

First, individual builds are narrow and visually distinct. For fun tactical encounters, it's useful if the players understand what the enemies are capable of, and a kineticist gives away its utility options in the first round if you want. This is not an advantage to the kineticist; it's a drawback that's useful to the GM.

Second, underleveled kinetic mooks can apply damage to high AC PCs. They have several options to do so - touch attacks, reflex-half, or eventually a bit of auto-hit damage. Some elements have setups for flat-footed hits too.

Third, each element except wood has at least one additional tactically interesting ability of the sort you can build an encounter off of. For example, void users can spray temporary darkness around the battlefield as part of their attack routine, water gets the grease spam and makes temporary difficult terrain, and fire/air users can see through ambient smoke/fog respectively.

Finally, Saturation abilities are basically a license for the GM to justify anything that makes the encounter more interesting.

[Snow_Blind]

I wouldn't advise using kinny on the GM side, for the simple reason that they are hideously painful to build.

[Eldonauran]

I wouldn't advise using kinny on the GM side, for the simple reason that they are hideously painful to build.I'd argue that depends entirely on your grasp of the class, system mastery, and character building tools in which you have access (like HeroLab). For myself, putting together a Kineticist is quite a smooth process compared to a prepared caster of any sort.

Not to mention, the payoff of using them against the players is definitely worth it in my opinion.

[Gnaeus]

Well, you can't necessarily assume all 3rd party content is allowed if some of it is allowed.

A lot of GMs go on a case by case basis. I personally can only attest to how great everything in Ultimate Psionics is and by extension how much I think of any DSP work.

Buuut not every GM is like that. Heck, I know one guy who just doesn't like psionics because they are just better than all the bad classes or any good class that cripple themselves (14 strength, high cha, channel focused, smite-less paladins).

You can’t necessarily assume that it is available for kineticist either.

I’ll say this, though. Any DM who is open to third party content who wouldn’t let in other stuff, including original 3.5 content (Warlock) and semi-official DSP stuff (like POW and akashics, the PF approved ports of TOB and Incarnum) is pretty questionable. The list of better balanced, better written, semi official content is long. Allowing 3pp Kenny mods but not actual better content would suggest one of several bad things about DM. Like a complete lack of game understanding or totally arbitrary rulings.

[Kurald Galain]

I think that's fair. I've only really learned how to use the telekinetic and every other build I try to make doesn't seem as effective.

Other Kinetic build: "Oh look I do +50% DPR" or "I have X ability"

Telekinetic: "I cast 'rearrange dungeon' and can do 90% of your tricks with a careful build plus tons of things no other element has access to. So much so, I think the class was going to just be my element (and fit really well in an Occult Adventures book) but was expanded to satisfy some Avatar fans on staff."

I know some people sing the praises of Air or Geo all day, but I think only Geo even begins to come close.
I wonder why, though? Earth has absolutely nothing going for it except the much-overrated kinetic cover, and bypassing DR (which anyone can do with a non-physical blast anyway). Air at least has perma-flight and can cast Haste a couple times per day... which is still nothing compared to aether.

[Rhedyn]

I wonder why, though? Earth has absolutely nothing going for it except the much-overrated kinetic cover, and bypassing DR (which anyone can do with a non-physical blast anyway). Air at least has perma-flight and can cast Haste a couple times per day... which is still nothing compared to aether.
It moves earth. That's a lot of hard to quantify utility.

Also my few attempts at it, Earth has access to better abilities on the average in my opinion than the elemental elements.

[Bucky]

The "too unfair to use" Earth build I referred to upthread takes place in tunnels and has the kineticist use her earth-moving ability to isolate players, earth glide to move freely herself, and her other abilities to fight without ever granting line-of-sight.

[Kurald Galain]

The "too unfair to use" Earth build I referred to upthread takes place in tunnels and has the kineticist use her earth-moving ability to isolate players, earth glide to move freely herself, and her other abilities to fight without ever granting line-of-sight.

Ok, that is great for a tactical encounter, but it's not enough justify a whole PC class (or element specialization). After all, this shtick only works in unworked tunnels that are 5' wide, and PCs can rarely choose their battlefields. Besides, there are monsters that can do the same without requiring the GM to learn a new set of mechanics (e.g. copper dragon, gelugon, stone maiden).

[Rynjin]

I wonder why, though? Earth has absolutely nothing going for it except the much-overrated kinetic cover, and bypassing DR (which anyone can do with a non-physical blast anyway). Air at least has perma-flight and can cast Haste a couple times per day... which is still nothing compared to aether.

Non-physical blasts do SIGNIFICANTLY less damage than physical ones (like, half as much), and resistances to the two more common elements (Fire and Cold) are ubiquitous. So you're left with being ever so slightly stronger than any given physical blast against an opponent with high DR, no elemental resistance, and no Spell resistance, but significantly weaker against everything else.

Energy Blasts are a trap.


The "too unfair to use" Earth build I referred to upthread takes place in tunnels and has the kineticist use her earth-moving ability to isolate players, earth glide to move freely herself, and her other abilities to fight without ever granting line-of-sight.

There are several classes that make stronger NPCs than PCs (Monks, notably).

This is not really a point in their favor.

[Kurald Galain]

From calculations in a Paizo thread, using straightforward build choices, a level-6 archery fighter gets four attacks at +9/+9/+9/+4 for 15.5 damage; whereas a level-6 fire kinny gets one attack at +11 vs touch, for 29.25 average damage. DPR against a standard CR8 enemy (AC 20 / touch 12) is as follows,


Fighter baseline: 29.8
Fighter with +2 dex belt: 33.2
Fighter a Flaming bow (affordable at level 6): 36.6
Fighter with Prayer: 35.4
Fighter with Inspire Courage: 41.4
Fighter with Haste: 42.6 (and this stacks with e.g. Inspire to 62.6, or with the Flaming bow, etc)
Fighter against DR: the same, as silver or cold iron arrows are very cheap.
Kinny baseline: 29.2
Kinny with +2 con or dex belt, or even both: 29.2
Kinny with prayer and/or inspire courage and/or haste: 29.2
Kinny against elemental resistance (11% of enemies at that level): 19.5
Kinny against SR (22% of enemies at that level): 13.1
Kinny against fire immunity (16% of enemies at that level): 0.0


In other words, at first glance kinny deals approximately the same damage as the fighter, but once you account for (1) magic items, (2) party buffs, or (3) DR/SR then the fighter easily deals twice as much damage. Kinnies benefit less (or not at all) from many common party buffs, have almost no relevant magic items in existence, and have no real way of mitigating SR or elemental resistance (or DR, except for one expensive and earth-only option). And a barbarian or paladin or magus or swashy or gunslinger would probably outdamage the fighter, everybody knows fighters are one of the weaker classes.


Energy Blasts are a trap.
Surprisingly, the phyical blasts don't fare much better. With +9 to hit for 38.25 damage (assuming empower and deadly aim), that's only 20.1 DPR. To be fair, this becomes 22.1 with a belt or Prayer or Haste spell, or up to 24.1 with Inspire Courage. It is better against the roughly 34% of enemies that have SR or fire immunity, but compared to the fighter's baseline of 29.8... yeah.

[Bucky]

Was that the kineticist's basic blast, or was it infused with something? Was it empowered?

[Kurald Galain]

Was that the kineticist's basic blast, or was it infused with something? Was it empowered?

That's empowered, including maxed out burn, size bonus to dex/con, and Fire's Fury.

[Rynjin]

Surprisingly, the phyical blasts don't fare much better. With +9 to hit for 38.25 damage (assuming empower and deadly aim), that's only 20.1 DPR. To be fair, this becomes 22.1 with a belt or Prayer or Haste spell, or up to 24.1 with Inspire Courage. It is better against the roughly 34% of enemies that have SR or fire immunity, but compared to the fighter's baseline of 29.8... yeah.

Not much, but enough. It puts the Earth Kineticist at ~5 rounds to kill for that CR 8, which is...usable. And doesn't have the glaring weaknesses the elemental blasts do.

And physical blasts on the whole scale much better. Energy Blasts are on average adding 3-4 damage per two levels to their blast, while physical blasts are adding 5-6 more. That adds up when you look at Composite Blasts that are Empowered at higher levels. IIRC they deal roughly 25% more damage on the whole with none of the weaknesses.

[Kurald Galain]

Not much, but enough. It puts the Earth Kineticist at ~5 rounds to kill for that CR 8, which is...usable. And doesn't have the glaring weaknesses the elemental blasts do.
It looks like you're correct. At level 6, the earth kinny's DPR is 20.1; the fire kinny looks like it deals more damage, but once you account for spell resistance, fire resistance, and fire immunity, he ends up with... 19.4. And the earth kinny benefits from common party buffs (like prayer or inspire courage) whereas fire kinny does not. I expect this difference to go up (in favor of earth) at higher levels; and fire has no useful abilities that aren't also covered by another element.

So remember how I said that 4-6 of the seven elements are trap options? Fire is a good example of a trap.

[Gnaeus]

So remember how I said that 4-6 of the seven elements are trap options? Fire is a good example of a trap.

I think that’s pretty optimistic. Assume that Earth isn’t a trap option. Then you take fire for your second element, and start shooting magma blasts, and getting hosed by both ER and DR. A lot of the combinations are worse than the sum of their parts for the unwary.

[Particle_Man]

Yeah I would just go "earth" and "more earth" as my combo option. :smallbiggrin:

[Kurald Galain]

I think that’s pretty optimistic. Assume that Earth isn’t a trap option. Then you take fire for your second element, and start shooting magma blasts, and getting hosed by both ER and DR. A lot of the combinations are worse than the sum of their parts for the unwary.

So annoyingly, taking aether (aka the only element with substantial utility) prevents you from taking any of the good composite blasts...

[Rhedyn]

So annoyingly, taking aether (aka the only element with substantial utility) prevents you from taking any of the good composite blasts...

Nah man, take aether on aether for Force Blast. Not tons of damage, but if you are needing to use it, you have no other good way to do damage.

[Serafina]

It always struck me as very odd that they didn't just go ahead and give the Kineticist two differently scaling ways to attack:


A Kinetic Weapon that's basically just an elemental, magical weapon (that scales either on it's own with class levels, or with some unique gear), that works just like all other weapon attacks. It has a damage dice that doesn't scale much (maybe a bit like a Monks, maybe not at all), you get iterative attacks with it (and full-attacking comes with cheaper Substance-Infusions, because why not give nice things), all the usual stuff that affects weapons can affect it, and so on. Make it so it can be used for both melee and ranged attacks, and you have a lovely workable thing.
And a Kinetic Blast that's just a scaling amount of damage dice and some appropriate bonuses, used for both a basic standard-action ranged attack, and all the fancy form infusions. It scales as quickly as a competent blasters damage does, and that's that.

It's just such a simpler solution. Kineticists tried to do a lot of things - compete with full-attackers for damage, compete with blasters, do melee, do ranged attacks, all while using different mechanics - that it's just way easier to use different abilities that resemble what you're trying to do.
This way, your full-attacking Kineticist works like any other full-attacker. But they're also a great switch-hitter. And also a great skirmisher because they can fall back on their Kinetic Blast, which allows them to move and still do good damage.

And once you have that - two simple mechanics with easy-to-understand damage - you can get rid of so many overcomplicated things.
You would no longer require that Simple Blasts be replaced by Composite Blasts when you want to keep up with your damage. Now they just all use the same damage progression, and Composites get you interesting new Infusion options your element might not have had before, or help you bypass resistance, while your Simple Blast can still do it's own unique thing.
You can get rid of the necessity of Metakinesis to pump up your damage, which really just takes away from adding interesting Infusions to your Blasts. Just add apppopriate bonuses at the right levels (or do it via feats, if necessary).

And then you maybe clear up the mess that is the Kineticist class table, by just adding an extra two colums that list when you get new Infusions and when you get new Wild Talents. Make sure that all the Infusions and Wild Talents do interesting, workable things at a decent cost and oh look you might have a good class people don't just want to play, but can easily access without a ton of damn traps.

[Eldonauran]

It always struck me as very odd that they didn't just go ahead and give the Kineticist two differently scaling ways to attack:

A Kinetic Weapon that's basically just an elemental, magical weapon (that scales either on it's own with class levels, or with some unique gear), that works just like all other weapon attacks. It has a damage dice that doesn't scale much (maybe a bit like a Monks, maybe not at all), you get iterative attacks with it (and full-attacking comes with cheaper Substance-Infusions, because why not give nice things), all the usual stuff that affects weapons can affect it, and so on. Make it so it can be used for both melee and ranged attacks, and you have a lovely workable thing.

You mean, like Energize Weapon (http://www.aonprd.com/KineticistTalentsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Energize%20 Weapon)? Which becomes burn free at 5th level due to infusion specialization? Kinetic Fist is pretty much the same. Kinetic Blade and Whip create a weapon for your attack routine.

Did I miss something?

[Rynjin]

You mean, like Energize Weapon (http://www.aonprd.com/KineticistTalentsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Energize%20 Weapon)? Which becomes burn free at 5th level due to infusion specialization? Kinetic Fist is pretty much the same. Kinetic Blade and Whip create a weapon for your attack routine.

Did I miss something?

That those require talent investment and suck before 5th.

[Serafina]

You mean, like Energize Weapon (http://www.aonprd.com/KineticistTalentsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Energize%20 Weapon)? Which becomes burn free at 5th level due to infusion specialization? Kinetic Fist is pretty much the same. Kinetic Blade and Whip create a weapon for your attack routine.

Did I miss something?There's a pretty big difference between hiding an ability behind a talent somewhere, or putting it front and center in your design.

Kinetic Blade does pretty much what I'm talking about - but just look at how it compares damage-wise to other uses of Kinetic Blast!
Before you get iterative attacks, it's really just less damage since it doesn't get bonus damage from overflow. Sure that's only 2 damage less, but that matters.
Once you do get iterative attacks (or attacks of opportunity with Kinetic Whip), it can be a massive damage multiplier. At 9th level, you'd lose 6 points from Overflow, but just another hit would add 5D6+5+Con damage.
Of course you have to figure in that the normal Blast can be empowered more easily via Gather Energy, so really the difference isn't that great - but pause for a moment and consider how complicated this comparison is. That's exactly what I am talking about. It would be much simpler if you didn't try to be clever and make it all one unified mechanic.

And that'd be a virtue. The two main failings of the Kineticist are that it's too hard to understand for players, and that it doesn't interact right with other mechanics most of the time. Using already familiar mechanics, instead of trying to create a grand unifying mechanic that then ends up not working half the time, is just much better.


And also - everything you mentioned requires investment. Of time and energy to compare it to other options, of talents to make it work, of levels until it's actually good.
Why not just give it out as a free option right at 1st level? Why not just give the class cool things to do, build solid mechanics with that, and build decent, well-integrated damage scaling with it?

[exelsisxax]

You mean, like Energize Weapon (http://www.aonprd.com/KineticistTalentsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Energize%20 Weapon)? Which becomes burn free at 5th level due to infusion specialization? Kinetic Fist is pretty much the same. Kinetic Blade and Whip create a weapon for your attack routine.

Did I miss something?

Yeah. It kind of sucks. A magus can add more damage using his arcane pool with no investment and can choose damage types flexibly. Kinetic blade isn't as bad because it uses your whole blast, but you don't threaten with it.


There's a pretty big difference between hiding an ability behind a talent somewhere, or putting it front and center in your design.

Kinetic Blade does pretty much what I'm talking about - but just look at how it compares damage-wise to other uses of Kinetic Blast!
Before you get iterative attacks, it's really just less damage since it doesn't get bonus damage from overflow. Sure that's only 2 damage less, but that matters.
Once you do get iterative attacks (or attacks of opportunity with Kinetic Whip), it can be a massive damage multiplier. At 9th level, you'd lose 6 points from Overflow, but just another hit would add 5D6+5+Con damage.
Of course you have to figure in that the normal Blast can be empowered more easily via Gather Energy, so really the difference isn't that great - but pause for a moment and consider how complicated this comparison is. That's exactly what I am talking about. It would be much simpler if you didn't try to be clever and make it all one unified mechanic.

And that'd be a virtue. The two main failings of the Kineticist are that it's too hard to understand for players, and that it doesn't interact right with other mechanics most of the time. Using already familiar mechanics, instead of trying to create a grand unifying mechanic that then ends up not working half the time, is just much better.

And also - everything you mentioned requires investment. Of time and energy to compare it to other options, of talents to make it work, of levels until it's actually good.
Why not just give it out as a free option right at 1st level? Why not just give the class cool things to do, build solid mechanics with that, and build decent, well-integrated damage scaling with it?

Yeah, if whip didn't require blade and they don't add up to "almost as good as a basic-op fighter". Everything is wrong with how the class works. It's like two designers did a blind merge on half-finished design notes and had an intern finish it. Do you have any guesses on how they started with an obvious warlock ripoff and still mangled it so badly?

[Rynjin]

Yeah, if whip didn't require blade and they don't add up to "almost as good as a basic-op fighter". Everything is wrong with how the class works. It's like two designers did a blind merge on half-finished design notes and had an intern finish it. Do you have any guesses on how they started with an obvious warlock ripoff and still mangled it so badly?

Flavor over mechanics, to put it shortly.

Mark's big inspiration was Avatar: The Last Airbender, and most of the Kineticist's mechanics spring from trying to capture that flavor, and the flavor of other elementalists in media. "Those characters don't just run out of energy, they get TIRED", leading to the horrible Burn mechanic, that kind of thing.

He also kind of outsmarted himself on the math. The Kineticist is very deliberately tuned to a certain level of optimization (read: low) that in theory should lend itself to being welcome and usable at any table. In practice, low OP tables and people who don't understand the game math think it's overpowered because it can roll a bunch of d6's "all day" (the same people that think Sneak Attack is a powerful damage dealing ability, more so than Rage or Favored Enemy), and medium-high OP tables find it a pain in the ass because it has no "push". Its upper bounds and lower bounds are pretty much the same, so it's very uninteresting to build a Kineticist.

I like Mark, but the Kineticist was his first class he took complete control of the design for as a first party Paizo developer and it really, really shows.

[Aldrakan]

Yeah, if whip didn't require blade and they don't add up to "almost as good as a basic-op fighter". Everything is wrong with how the class works. It's like two designers did a blind merge on half-finished design notes and had an intern finish it. Do you have any guesses on how they started with an obvious warlock ripoff and still mangled it so badly?

I have a theory if you'll indulge some wild speculation!

Kineticist was of course released and stuck out weirdly in Occult Adventures. I've seen it stated that the initial inspiration for the kineticist was Carrie and Charlie (the pyrokinetic from Firestarter). Kids with psychic powers, obvious thematic fit. Think Eleven from Stranger Things for a good example, even if that did come out later.

I also believe that Aether as an element first appeared in Pathfinder in Occult Adventures and this theory has a giant hole in it if I'm wrong.

My idea is they started with a focus on Carrie and other telekinetic psychic kids. You can see remnants of that in Burn, focusing to unleash more powerful abilities, the Constitution-based "casting", overtaxing the body to control the world mentally. But there's Charlie, setting stuff on fire. And in Pathfinder when someone starts controlling one element the obvious question is "What about the other three?"

Because of that, possibly fear it was overlapping too much with the actual Psychic, and someone on staff being a big fan of Avatar The Last Airbender, the class got shoved into the Elemental Planes paradigm.

So suddenly the primary inspiration for the class doesn't even fit its concept, and they turn Aether into an element to salvage that part, but now they have to make abilities for five elements and aether and air step on each others toes because aether wasn't even supposed to be an element and what does fire do besides burn people anyway and deadlines are coming up and by the time they realize what they came up with to make all the elements intertwined is confusing instead of elegant it's too late to fix it because really that means going all the way back to the conceptual stage and starting over.

Now what maybe they should have done instead of saying "Whoops parts of this class clash with lore I guess we'll add a bunch of stuff to make it fit" is cut those bits and said "Here's the kineticist, it's telekinetic, it has utility because psychic powers are flexible, it uses burn for nova-ing instead of basic functionality, and hey maybe we'll make an archetype that sets people on fire instead later".

[Eldonauran]

That those require talent investment and suck before 5th.
:smallsigh: Yes, imagine building towards a concept and investing class features towards it. It's totally not like you have OTHER class features and feats to use, while being perfectly functional until you reach that lofty level of 5.

Sorry, but I am simply going to have to disagree and leave it at that. There really appears to be no point defending the class when the biggest two complaints are that it is too unwieldy and isn't the best at what it tries to do. The first being a matter of opinion (and/or game mastery) and the second a huge variable in optimization expectation.

[Rynjin]

Yes, imagine that people don't like a class that is barely competent (if that) at a niche which other classes have excelled in long before or since the class existed, and nickel and dime the player for every vaguely functional ability it offers and locks them permanently into extremely small subsets of choices those competitors get largely for free with more flexibility.

Not to mention Kinetic Fist and Energize Weapon in particular suck a whole lot more in an absolute sense than anything else in the class. Kinetic Fist is literally just a worse version of Kinetic Blade for no apparent reason than Paizo hates Monks and anything connected to unarmed strikes with a fiery vengeance that has baffled me since I started playing this game.

Imagine.

Edit: You know, something I forgot until just now, the Kineticist provokes an Attack of opportunity every time it activates Kinetic Blade/Whip/Fist/Energize Weapon/etc.. Because while they have caveats that say the Kineticist doesn't provoke ADDITIONAL attacks of opportunity, it doesn't remove the original AoO because you're casting a Spell-Like ability in melee.

The Kineticist is like a Matryoshka of suck; every time I think of a mechanic and brush up on how it works a new layer of bad is revealed inside.

[Eldonauran]

Yes, imagine that people don't like a class that is barely competent (if that) at a niche which other classes have excelled in long before or since the class existed, and nickel and dime the player for every vaguely functional ability it offers and locks them permanently into extremely small subsets of choices those competitors get largely for free with more flexibility.

Not to mention Kinetic Fist and Energize Weapon in particular suck a whole lot more in an absolute sense than anything else in the class. Kinetic Fist is literally just a worse version of Kinetic Blade for no apparent reason than Paizo hates Monks and anything connected to unarmed strikes with a fiery vengeance that has baffled me since I started playing this game.All a matter of opinion and/or varies greatly from table to table. However, Kinetic Fist and Energize weapon apply to every attack that round. Kinetic blade does not.


Edit: You know, something I forgot until just now, the Kineticist provokes an Attack of opportunity every time it activates Kinetic Blade/Whip/Fist/Energize Weapon/etc.. Because while they have caveats that say the Kineticist doesn't provoke ADDITIONAL attacks of opportunity, it doesn't remove the original AoO because you're casting a Spell-Like ability in melee.:smallsigh: No. No, it doesn't. You are overlooking the action it takes to activate the blast and abilities that are activated as a swift action or free action (or part of another action) do not provoke AoOs (barring explicit text that says otherwise). The rules can be found in the combat section under swift/free actions.

[Rynjin]

All a matter of opinion and/or varies greatly from table to table. However, Kinetic Fist and Energize weapon apply to every attack that round. Kinetic blade does not.

Fist and Energize are +1-2 magic weapon properties at most playable levels. Not worth a talent for any class.

Blade can be used for full attacks, as explicitly stated in the ability. It lasts until the end of your turn.


:smallsigh: No. No, it doesn't. You are overlooking the action it takes to activate the blast and abilities that are activated as a swift action or free action do not provoke AoOs (barring explicit text that says otherwise). The rules can be found in the combat section under swift/free actions.

It is not a swift or free action, it is part of an attack action, charge action, or full attack action. Regardless, you're incorrect about that text. Quickened Spells do not provoke AoOs; that is not extended to any Swift or Free action, and the action taken to activate an SLA does not change whether it provokes or not.

The rules you are referencing are neither present on the SRD nor in my copy of the CRB (2nd printing). The closest is a caveat under "Magic" that spells with a casting time of Swift action do not provoke AoOs, which could be extrapolated to SLAs as well (so Cold Ice Strike is safe, for instance), but as we've established, this SLA does not take a Swift action to cast.

There are a few Swift actions in the game that DO provoke (such as retrieving an item while under the effects of Adroit Retrieval, or using a Tiefling's Prehensile Tail) and it is the default rules assumption, which is why most abilities that grant a Swift action either SPECIFY it doesn't provoke (the myriad abilities that let you stand up from prone as a Swift, for example) or are Supernatural abilities (which already never provoke).

Your interpretation is likely how it is run at most tables, mind you, because it is the most INTUITIVE interpretation of the rules, but it is not the RAW.

[Eldonauran]

I don't think you looked hard enough, or didn't check the SRD either.


Chapter 8,Actions in Combat,(My pages 181 - 182)]
Free Action: Free actions consume a very small amount of time and effort. You can perform one or more free actions while taking another action normally. However, there are reasonable limits on what you can really do for free, as decided by the GM.
Swift Action: A swift action consumes a very small amount of time, but represents a larger expenditure of effort and energy than a free action. You can perform only a single swift action per turn.
Not an Action: Some activities are so minor that they are not even considered free actions. They literally don't take any time at all to do and are considered an inherent part of doing something else, such as nocking an arrow as part of an attack with a bow.

Page 188, Free Actions/Swift Actions
Free Actions
Free actions don't take any time at all, though there may be limits to the number of free actions you can perform in a turn. Free actions rarely incur attacks of opportunity. Some common free actions are described below.

......

Swift Actions
A swift action consumes a very small amount of time, but represents a larger expenditure of effort than a free action. You can perform one swift action per turn without affecting your ability to perform other actions. In that regard, a swift action is like a free action. You can, however, perform only one single swift action per turn, regardless of what other actions you take. You can take a swift action anytime you would normally be allowed to take a free action. Swift actions usually involve spellcasting, activating a feat, or the activation of magic items.


The abilities were are talking about are activated as part of another action. They are not their own actions. Extrapolate from there.

[Rynjin]

You did read the part where it says "rarely", and not "never", right? Literally none of that contradicts what I explained to you.

[Eldonauran]

You did read the part where it says "rarely", and not "never", right? Literally none of that contradicts what I explained to you.And none of that changes the fact that none of the abilities we are discussing explicitly state they provoke AoO. Since they are not their own actions, they CAN NOT provoke unless it says they do (that's when the "rarely" comes into play). Kinetic blade even states "Since it’s part of another action (and isn’t an action itself), using this wild talent doesn’t provoke any additional attacks of opportunity". It is not even required to be stated as long as it states "activating as part of another action" or similar.

EDIT: Anyway, I'm done discussing this. Take it to a rules forum. We are far from topic.

[Kurald Galain]

You mean, like Energize Weapon (http://www.aonprd.com/KineticistTalentsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Energize%20 Weapon)? Which becomes burn free at 5th level due to infusion specialization? Kinetic Fist is pretty much the same. Kinetic Blade and Whip create a weapon for your attack routine.

Did I miss something?

Yes, what you're missing is that most players WANT to play the kinny as a ranged blaster and that it is advertised as such; so since the best way to play one is to just make a sword and full attack with that (like SO many other classes) that's a big design failure.

[Serafina]

Either way - hiding all of this behind extra talents, for which you have to understand how blasts work, and how blast damage interacts with several other class features to see how it actually scales in damage, makes the Kineticist harder to understand.
Thus, making it a simpler class feature would make the Kineticist more worth trying to understand.

Right now, what do you get if you put in all the effort to understand the Kineticist? About three builds that are decent, and only two of those can't be replicated with other 1st-party material.
You can make a decent-ish ranged blaster, but you can make that with any caster-blaster for a third of the effort.
Aetherkineticists are pretty unique in their collection of abilities at least, so that's something.
And Kinetic Whip builds offer a unique combination of area control and damage that you can't really do with casters, and not with 1st-party martials either.

Can that be worth the effort? Yes, if you happen to enjoy one of those two things. But odds are, since the Kineticist also tried to encompass a lot of other concepts, you didn't go in looking for "sneaky mage/rogue hybrid with telekinesis" or "elemental tentacle pal". So you'll most likely put in a lot of work, and then end up disappointed.
And that's why my answer to "Is the Kineticist worth trying to understand" is "most likely not".

If you're willing to learn an entire new system - which the Kineticist basically is - you might as well look at Path of War, Spheres of Power/Might, or Akashic Mysteries, all of which offer superior results because they leave you with far more workable character concepts.

[Rhedyn]

You did read the part where it says "rarely", and not "never", right? Literally none of that contradicts what I explained to you.
I think you are misreading "Since it’s part of another action (and isn’t an action itself), using this wild talent doesn’t provoke any additional attacks of opportunity."
Using the talent doesn't provoke additional attacks of opportunity, and things like the attack action do not normally provoke attacks of opportunity.

I think you are trying to say the blast does, but a blast+infusion is one ability when you put them together.

[Rynjin]

I could be parsing it wrong (though if I am, the word "additional" is entirely superfluous; melee attacks don't normally provoke AoOs), but even if I am it's not for the reason he was suggesting.

[Rhedyn]

I could be parsing it wrong (though if I am, the word "additional" is entirely superfluous; melee attacks don't normally provoke AoOs), but even if I am it's not for the reason he was suggesting.
Unarmed strikes without the feat provoke attacks of opportunity.