Kineticist Problems - did I find them all?

[Darg]

... I think what I'm really saying is I'd rather see the specialty shine and be stronger than optional diversity weakened.

I have to agree with this. I tried making a kineticist once and I remember the level drop felt so wrong when I realized it was there. It feels like the only reason it's there is to make make picking another element weaker to put it in line with specializing. Specializing should be just as strong as branching out without nerfs, it's not like kineticist would be OP with it gone considering the limited selection of talents in the first place.

[Psyren]

I was thinking through the basic utility wild talents next and they are really weird. They seem to function like a collection of cantrips - some granting 3 and some granting 2. For example Fire (basic pyrokinesis) duplicates Spark, Light, and Flare. Meanwhile, Air duplicates just two - Breeze, and a weird one with no analogue (at least, not one I saw) that helps you and your companions hide your scent.

I think fire's basic utility talent is the right model for these - each one gives you three cantrips (or cantrip-equivalent powers) that thematically fit your element. So with that comes the question - what three cantrip effects would represent each kineticist element best?

For Air I've already settled on adding Message (whispering your words on the wind to a distant listener is very thematic) and I'm thinking of scrapping the scent one for an electricity cantrip, but I'm not the authority on all the cantrips and orisons in PF (or 3.5 for that matter) so I can already imagine there are some really cool ones that I'm missing that would fit the 7 core kineticist elements. (As a refresher these are air, earth, fire, water, aether, void, wood.)

Oh, and thanks for all the feedback/prior comments, I did go through those too and continue to be appreciative.

Spoiler: Prior feedback (thanks again)

Show

I mean, at minimum get burn separated from your Con/hit points. It can still knock you out if it goes over a set limit, but trying to track all those different types of hp damage is obnoxious, and PF still allows situational ability score changes. Burn also has the same problem wild surge does (part of the feature gets worse the higher your level).

Have the burn limit be static according to the character's effective kineticist class level and nothing else, and then scale 'burn damage' with that new limit. Con/hit points don't even enter into the equation.

Well... "Burn damage" is already only based on character level, meaning that having more sources of HP (high Con, temp HP, favored class, items/buffs/etc) already dilutes its drawback. That's all it needs in my opinion. I did raise the hard cap though (to scale more with level) so if that results in kineticists carrying a bunch more burn damage and being more in danger than they were before, I'll revisit that.

IMO just play an elemental themed vizier. Using city of 7 seraphs as well as Akashic mysteries can net you a ton of elemental themed abilities or easily refluffed elemental themed abilities.

While I'm a big fan of both DSP and Akasha, "play a different class" isn't really the kind of suggestion I was looking for, no matter how effective that might prove to be

I would argue that a hydrokineticist and a pyrokineticist being as adept at each others elements as the other just by choosing them at higher levels is not necessarily true though. It may look that way, but individual build differences should account for something. A dedicated blaster is different from a caster who uses Fireball every now and then, after all. So in this sense I'd say that the option to acquire talents requiring certain elements much earlier is not to be ignored, particularly if you want to make them attractive, yet put a huge focus on improving utility talents. So while the pyrokineticist may just be as adept at water on a basic level, maybe they lack the hydrokineticists water-based talents that make them feel more in tune with the element.

It's certainly true that build diversity could lead to this sort of difference all on its own, but I think the design should encourage that sort of diversity in the first place. If your character chooses to be a "pyrokineticist" (or more accurately, the way it works in-universe - if they are chosen to be one by some unknown power or circumstance), that choice/label should be meaningful in the sense that something should be pushing you towards fire talents... even and perhaps especially if you expand later to include secondary elements. Then an archetype can modify/break this rule.

A -4 CL hitmight be too harsh though, I'll take a closer look at that.

I have to agree with this. I tried making a kineticist once and I remember the level drop felt so wrong when I realized it was there. It feels like the only reason it's there is to make make picking another element weaker to put it in line with specializing. Specializing should be just as strong as branching out without nerfs, it's not like kineticist would be OP with it gone considering the limited selection of talents in the first place.

Given that the limited talents is something I plan to buff anyway, that drawback may not be so harsh as it first appears, but I'll take feedback once that part is ready.

[Kurald Galain]

An issue to consider is that cantrips are all over the place in terms of power level. For instance, Spark and Flare are pretty much useless; whereas Daze and Create Water are pretty good.

[Kurald Galain]

So, sticking with cantrips that are actually useful:

• Aether => Daze, Enhanced Diplomacy, Mage Hand
• Air => Create Water (by summoning a raincloud), Mage Hand, Message
• Earth => Detect Magic, Ghost Sound (making echoes), Mending
• Fire => Detect Magic, Light, Purify Food (i.e. by cooking it)
• Void => Daze, Light, Ghost Sound
• Water => Create Water, Enhanced Diplomacy, Stabilize
• Wood => Mending, Purify Food, Stabilize

[Rerednaw]

Read most of this thread and agree with most of it.

I was a tester for the kineticist and pointed out many of the areas that could use improvement. (Many of which persist today.)

One thing that would help is if infusions had better scaling.
For example if you took 'Kinetic Blade...' say it automatically became Kinetic Whip once you reached 7th level. Blade Whirlwind should grow into Whip Hurricane at 13th level and so on.
And waiting until minimum 7th level for a non-lethal option (Expanded Metakinesis -> Merciful Spell) is kind of a slap in the face too.

Another has to do with the damage...
Composite blasts are somewhat underpowered. At 7th level, the damage for an empowered basic physical blast is nearly identical to a composite blast...only it's 1 burn vs. 2 burn.
Math-> 25 point buy, starting with 18 dex and 16 con, +2 siz bonus to each (elemental overflow), +2 belt of con (20 dex and 20 con).
Feats: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot.
Target within 30 feet
2 points of burn into Elemental Overflow (+2/+4)
Empowered Basic Blast: 4d6+4(base)+5(con)+1(PBS)+4(EO) = 4d6+14 x 1.5 -> 14+14 x 1.5 = average 42 damage. Yes with kinetic blast, empowered also multiples the static add due to the wording.
This costs 1 burn.
Composite Blast: 8d6+16(base)+5(con)+1(PBS)+4(EO) = 8d6+26 = average 54 damage. This costs 2 burn. Now this is pretty good...about a 28% damage increase...but is it really?

Well we did have one more burn to spend...so let's say you decided on Expanded Metakinesis - Furious Spell with your Empowered Blast. Now it's 4d6+14+6(at 7th level) x 1.5 or 14+20 x 1.5 = average 51 damage. For the same 2 burn.

So basically your signature high damage blast grants you an average of 3 whopping extra points or 5.8% damage increase for the same amount of burn.
In other words, composite blast is essentially not an upgrade at all. While it's not terrible...one would have hoped for more considering how long you have already waited. And needless to say you are playing a Gathlain race...anything else and your damage capability drops even further.

And nope not going to compare numbers with dedicated blaster evokers...that's a whole other story and it's a different meta (nova vs. sustained)...wizards, sorcerers, arcanists, etc...all can nova way better than a kineticist...but that's to be expected.

On the plus side Kineticist does have a rather decent floor in terms of capability. There are several 'trap' combos, but every class has them. I personally like Aether (telekinesis) for it's utility and having one of the best defense talents. Air would rate high simply due to it's access to Haste (Celerity) but it's dinged due to it's weak defense. And if you're playing a Gathlain the other big appeal of Air (at-will flight) doesn't mean as much since you already can fly. Earth has a wonderful defense but is dinged to only having physical blasts...which means welcome to miss-ville. Though at-will earth glide is pretty awesome...did you really want to wait 10 levels before you could do it? Water is a happy medium of decent offense, defense, and utility...but you pay for this by being almost jack of trades in a class that is already a master of none. Fire is really the best at AoE damage...and even single target is nothing to sneer at...but in turn you must expect to run into fire immune creatures, get used to having one of the worst defense talents, no utility to speak of...but man setting things on fire is the bomb :) .

All said...I still love the concept of the class. Ever since it came out, I have played kineticists far more than any other class.

Oh regarding cantrips? I'd add Disrupt Undead to Wood (positive energy blast ftw)...

[vasilidor]

To be honest, having read through the kineticist, it just seems like it would be entirely unfun to play.

[Eldonauran]

To be honest, having read through the kineticist, it just seems like it would be entirely unfun to play.

I can offer you only my own experience, and those of the players I have DM-ed for. None of us have ever expressed a similar opinion about the kineticist. In fact, it is now quite common for at least one of our characters to be a kineticist. Our most recent game has an Aether Kineticist with secondary focus in Wood, and one character that dipped two levels of Elemental Ascetic (Aether) to augment their build. No 3rd party material either.

You mileage my vary, of course. It think it all comes down to what your expectations and playstyles are.

[Florian]

To be honest, having read through the kineticist, it just seems like it would be entirely unfun to play.

(also @Psyren)

Kinny is fun. But you have to go at the class with the right expectations. In a sense, the class behaves more like a traditional T3 chassis, the way that you need a solid build at the core, and use your power to boost that beyond it.
You really can't compare it to the old warlock class, in the sense that you simply got to spam you stuff, that would be the Witch.

[Darg]

Considering that with a few minor alterations to update the warlock for pathfinder, it pretty much matches the kineticist in power level. I think that's part of where the problem lies. Using pathfinder, warlock is relatively weaker than its 3.5 counterpart, and it wasn't exactly a star there either.

Although I would say that it isn't that the kineticist wouldn't be fun, it's the continuous feeling that you are just barely missing something all the time that is unlike the warlocks I've built. It's actually pretty weird considering you get more stuff. Maybe it has to do with talents being heavily divided into elements.

[Kurald Galain]

To be honest, having read through the kineticist, it just seems like it would be entirely unfun to play.

That is my experience as well. I have seen several players abandon a kinny mid-campaign because they found it a one-trick pony (in combat, they do the same thing every single round over and over and over; and all their out-of-combat talents are immediately upstaged by any 6- or 9-level caster in the party).

And in PFS, at least in my area, nobody has played a kinny for more than two or three sessions.

Unfun is a good description. Lots of fiddliness for no real benefit.

[VoltsofEight]

My biggest issue with the Kineticist isn't just that it's a bad class. It is in alot of ways, it's that because it's tied to such an interesting concept alot of people will want to play it regardless of it's actual functionality. Like you'll get some people saying, "Well after me and/or my DM jumped through all the hoops necessary to understand the class, and after I tempered my expectations on what the class actually is and can do I had a good time and think the class is actually worth it. Anyone could play it.".

And it's get's worse because of how the general community responds to 3rd party content. The idea that instead of playing the bad class or using the bad options we could use the good stuff refuses to catch on. Paizo could come out and just allow certain 3rd party stuff in Pathfinder Society and kill this attitude. Same with WotC with the fixes to the Ranger or the Way of the 4 Elements. But instead they skirt around the problem saying things like "You CAN use 3rd party stuff in your game if you want to. It's your table." And the idea of 3rd party stuff can't catch on.

In this very thread OP said how it would probably be more likely to have a class be accepted as a completely rebuilt version, untested and all, over the tested well received 3rd party class or 3rd party versions and add-on of the class. It just irks me.

[Kris Moonhand]

In this very thread OP said how it would probably be more likely to have a class be accepted as a completely rebuilt version, untested and all, over the tested well received 3rd party class or 3rd party versions and add-on of the class. It just irks me.

This didn't just hit the nail on the head, it sent the nail through to the center of the earth. I swear, 99% of the problems people have with Kineticist would be fixed if they just used Legendary Kineticist. Pick up the Ultimate Kineticist Compendium, folks. It's got all the OG kinny stuff, LegKinny, plus about a thousand more wild talents, feats, archetypes, items, and cool weird junk like Elemental Mutations.

[Eldonauran]

"Well after me and/or my DM jumped through all the hoops necessary to understand the class, and after I tempered my expectations on what the class actually is and can do I had a good time and think the class is actually worth it. Anyone could play it."

That is certainly a common, valid opinion on the class. It is also an opinion shared by many for a number of the other classes as well. Same goes for the people who do not share the same opinions on the matter, for either. Not every class is going to fit in at every table or with every play style. I believe that is the intended function of 3rd party material or homebrew. Change it to fit your table, rather than insist that everyone else adopt the same changes. I can see the friction where PFS is concerned, but that is a PFS and PFS player problem.

[Kurald Galain]

And it's get's worse because of how the general community responds to 3rd party content. The idea that instead of playing the bad class or using the bad options we could use the good stuff refuses to catch on. Paizo could come out and just allow certain 3rd party stuff in Pathfinder Society and kill this attitude.

To be fair, with the notable exception of Dreamscarred Press, pretty much all 3rd-party content I've seen is poorly written, poorly tested, poorly balanced; and frequently all of the above. I know this forum gets a lot of Paizo-bashing, but 3rd-party is almost universally much, much worse than what Paizo puts out (again, except DSP).

And the kinny has the obvious 1st-party solutions of "just play a sorcerer" or "just play an alchemist". If you want to bring 3rd-party into it, then DSP also solves the issue. No need to wade into the cesspool of other 3rd-party stuff, really.

[Darg]

And the worst part about 3rd party is that you have to explain everything to everyone at the table as things come up because not everyone has access to the 3rd party content to understand how it would interact with the table. Sometimes this can lead to feeling as if you weren't playing well with the group or possibly out of no where overshadow the group as they didn't have the capacity to truly understand the interactions the content could have.

[Kris Moonhand]

To be fair, with the notable exception of Dreamscarred Press, pretty much all 3rd-party content I've seen is poorly written, poorly tested, poorly balanced; and frequently all of the above. I know this forum gets a lot of Paizo-bashing, but 3rd-party is almost universally much, much worse than what Paizo puts out (again, except DSP).

And the kinny has the obvious 1st-party solutions of "just play a sorcerer" or "just play an alchemist". If you want to bring 3rd-party into it, then DSP also solves the issue. No need to wade into the cesspool of other 3rd-party stuff, really.

I'm sorry... what? There are several great publishers besides DSP. Legendary Games, Lost Spheres Publishing, Cobalt Sages, Little Red Goblin Games, Alluria Publishing, Drop Dead Studios.

[Rynjin]

I'd say the only major publisher that isn't professional level is Rogue Genius.

[Kurald Galain]

I'm sorry... what? There are several great publishers besides DSP. Legendary Games, Lost Spheres Publishing, Cobalt Sages, Little Red Goblin Games, Alluria Publishing, Drop Dead Studios.

There's also Ascension Games, Flaming Crab, Kobold Press, Radiance House, Rite Publishing, and several others. If some of those publishers are great and others are crap, how would anyone know? You expect any GM to just take your word for it? The only ones that are ever mentioned in forum discussions are DSP and Spheres (and the non-sphere material by Drop Dead Studios isn't mentioned either), so it's very reasonable for GMs to conclude that everything else is a huge pile of random quality that isn't worth looking into.

(edit) actually, it might be interesting to have a thread about which 3PP are great and which ones are crap, but I wouldn't expect it to yield any consensus.

[stack]

There can be a great deal of variation within a company too. It's a small market business that relies heavily on freelancers.

[digiman619]

There's also Ascension Games, Flaming Crab, Kobold Press, Radiance House, Rite Publishing, and several others. If some of those publishers are great and others are crap, how would anyone know? You expect any GM to just take your word for it? The only ones that are ever mentioned in forum discussions are DSP and Spheres (and the non-sphere material by Drop Dead Studios isn't mentioned either), so it's very reasonable for GMs to conclude that everything else is a huge pile of random quality that isn't worth looking into.

(edit) actually, it might be interesting to have a thread about which 3PP are great and which ones are crap, but I wouldn't expect it to yield any consensus.

There can be a great deal of variation within a company too. It's a small market business that relies heavily on freelancers.

To be fair, the same can be said of Paizo as well. See: The Shifter.

[VoltsofEight]

snip

I didn't want to be too aggressive in my hypothetical so that I didn't come off as a jerk but I'll be a bit more clear. When I say "jump through hoops" I don't mean that the class is just a little bit harder to understand, it's a ****ton harder to understand all for the privilege of playing a class that unless you fully got everything, in my opinion, feels like crap to play and is way more limited than the image you have in your head of what that class should play like and feel like. And once you do fully understand the class it ends up as a one note wonder(with exception to the Aether element which sacrifices most of it's damage for for some utility that also feels one note-y).

And that's what I mean when I say "tempered my expectations" because it genuinely feels like the concept should be able to do more. Especially compared to other classes that feel like they got too much on the power and versatility side of things. Compare learning the Kinny as someone who never played the class before, new to Pathfinder or experienced with the system, to learning the Gunslinger, or the Alchemist, or even the Medium. I would argue that the Medium is similarly confusing but at least it's a good class with multiple options on how to play it so it feels worth it.

I've actually read people talking about their experience playing the class and how they got it to work which involved flashcards and all I can think of is "well if you're doing all that for this ****ty class how would you like to use flashcards for a PoW class that is actually good and fun to play without having any of that baggage?" But that likely won't happen.

I don't know if that mindset comes from PFS and spreads outwards or if it merely crystallizes there since the people are playing "official Pathfinder", I just know that it sucks. And it's not just in PFS, it's in D&D too. You would think that in 3.5 people would be more open about 3rd Party classes but not so much in my experience or in places I've read about. Instead people would more likely tell you to go to Dragon Magazine #73 page 12, paragraph 4, to pick up this random feat, then play this particular race you've never heard of to get that one particular racial feat and THEN just get blah, blah, blah. Having you look up 7 different sources just to play one concept that is all in this one class.

snip

Nah, I get that. Like other people have said there are other notable devs out there. But I feel like unless you and your friends decide to play spur of the moment randomly on a Tuesday afternoon everybody participating has time to look at who they're gonna play. If your friend comes and says they want to play this 3rd Party class and you look it up just to see what it is and people's experience with it, like you would for any weird concept you would have as a GM, and you see more than a handful of reviews, reddit posts, or forum topics about the class maybe you could give it a shot(note that this doesn't mean read every single one of those things just that knowing that they exist could be enough to be comfortable with trying).

On the other hand if you look up the class and all you find is some D&DWiki article posted by username totallynotBrucesfriend then yeah, you probably shouldn't give that a second look.

Also, just want to be clear that I'm not blaming you for any of this or your reasons for not wanting to use 3rd Party content. Just general exhaustion with the mindset and this was a chance to vent. Sorry for derailing your topic for a little bit.

[Psyren]

Whew, 5 weeks, still under the limit!

This didn't just hit the nail on the head, it sent the nail through to the center of the earth. I swear, 99% of the problems people have with Kineticist would be fixed if they just used Legendary Kineticist. Pick up the Ultimate Kineticist Compendium, folks. It's got all the OG kinny stuff, LegKinny, plus about a thousand more wild talents, feats, archetypes, items, and cool weird junk like Elemental Mutations.

I read Legendary Kineticist and while it has some good ideas, it still has others I'm not as enthused about, as I discussed with N.Jolly earlier in the thread. For example it keeps the 30' base range on KB, it keeps the disconnect between hating burn but wanting a minimum amount of it to be able to have a chance of hitting things, and it conversely changes the downside for having burn completely to one that barely has an impact in combat at all. It also has a pool of consequence-free "encounter burn" (battle burn) which to me is conceptually redundant with the Internal Buffer (I don't think the class needs two "free burn" pools to track), as well as not really needing a per-encounter resource either. All this is to say, LK isn't my cup of tea so I'm still plugging away at a rework of my own for my GM/table that I'm also happy to share for anyone else who might be interested once it's up.

Considering that with a few minor alterations to update the warlock for pathfinder, it pretty much matches the kineticist in power level. I think that's part of where the problem lies. Using pathfinder, warlock is relatively weaker than its 3.5 counterpart, and it wasn't exactly a star there either.

Although I would say that it isn't that the kineticist wouldn't be fun, it's the continuous feeling that you are just barely missing something all the time that is unlike the warlocks I've built. It's actually pretty weird considering you get more stuff. Maybe it has to do with talents being heavily divided into elements.

I think the elemental divide matters somewhat, but isn't nearly as impactful as the utility/infusion divide. You should just have freedom in picking whichever wild talents you want - if you're in a campaign where you can get the blast where you want it to be with 4-5 talents and can devote the other 9-11 to utility stuff (assuming a typical campaign that ends in the 13-15 range). Conversely, if you're in a combat-heavy campaign where you want to be elemental archery/artillery with a couple of neat tricks or movement modes, you should be able to do that too. And if you want a more traditional kineticist that divides its attention between these approaches, it should be able to do that too. In other words, the wall between those two buckets should just be torn down.

On top of this, the Kinny's chassis is just weird - they need certain elements to even have a place in the party without their magic. For me, being one with the elements means spending more time outdoors than most people, so you shouldn't need specific elements to have class skills like Climb, Swim and Fly, and the class that is about being one with the elements should definitely be able to intuitively understand things like planes, arcana, geography, and nature. If you want specific elements to be better at certain activities (like the water kineticists being better swimmers), I think that's better accomplished through mechanics like Skill Focus than the approach they went with.

I didn't want to be too aggressive in my hypothetical so that I didn't come off as a jerk but I'll be a bit more clear. When I say "jump through hoops" I don't mean that the class is just a little bit harder to understand, it's a ****ton harder to understand all for the privilege of playing a class that unless you fully got everything, in my opinion, feels like crap to play and is way more limited than the image you have in your head of what that class should play like and feel like. And once you do fully understand the class it ends up as a one note wonder(with exception to the Aether element which sacrifices most of it's damage for for some utility that also feels one note-y).

And that's what I mean when I say "tempered my expectations" because it genuinely feels like the concept should be able to do more. Especially compared to other classes that feel like they got too much on the power and versatility side of things. Compare learning the Kinny as someone who never played the class before, new to Pathfinder or experienced with the system, to learning the Gunslinger, or the Alchemist, or even the Medium. I would argue that the Medium is similarly confusing but at least it's a good class with multiple options on how to play it so it feels worth it.

I've actually read people talking about their experience playing the class and how they got it to work which involved flashcards and all I can think of is "well if you're doing all that for this ****ty class how would you like to use flashcards for a PoW class that is actually good and fun to play without having any of that baggage?" But that likely won't happen.

I don't know if that mindset comes from PFS and spreads outwards or if it merely crystallizes there since the people are playing "official Pathfinder", I just know that it sucks. And it's not just in PFS, it's in D&D too. You would think that in 3.5 people would be more open about 3rd Party classes but not so much in my experience or in places I've read about. Instead people would more likely tell you to go to Dragon Magazine #73 page 12, paragraph 4, to pick up this random feat, then play this particular race you've never heard of to get that one particular racial feat and THEN just get blah, blah, blah. Having you look up 7 different sources just to play one concept that is all in this one class.

Agreed - the level of mental frontloading you have to do with this class to get baseline performance out of it is criminal. A huge offender here is the class table, which does not help at all with understanding many of the core and even hidden mechanics to this class.

The class table should tell you the basic numbers this class has to offer. Roughly how easy will it be for me to hit enemies? How much base damage will I do? How many talents will I know at a given level? Kinny's table does none of that, nor does it even highlight the abilities you'll need to understand to answer those questions. Compare to something like the Alchemist - a class that is arguably just as complex - where all of this information is laid out right in front of the new player. Or compare to a Warlock/Witch's table. That is what a redesigned Kineticist should do, and what I'm working on (slowly but steadily) with mine.

[DrMartin]

I think the elemental divide matters somewhat, but isn't nearly as impactful as the utility/infusion divide. You should just have freedom in picking whichever wild talents you want - if you're in a campaign where you can get the blast where you want it to be with 4-5 talents and can devote the other 9-11 to utility stuff (assuming a typical campaign that ends in the 13-15 range). Conversely, if you're in a combat-heavy campaign where you want to be elemental archery/artillery with a couple of neat tricks or movement modes, you should be able to do that too. And if you want a more traditional kineticist that divides its attention between these approaches, it should be able to do that too. In other words, the wall between those two buckets should just be torn down.

I think that the divide between combat and utility powers helps in making characters more interesting to play at the table, and it also helps with the design of said talents.

The first problem it´s something I´ve seen with, for instance, Spheres of Might characters, where I can sink all my talents to do some crazy stuff, But in a lot of cases that one thing is The One Thing you are doing every round that you can pull it off. Fun to build but repetitive to play. Having a system that forces you to allocate your character resources to different areas will result in more rounded characters - which are generally more fun to play that 1 trick ponies.

The second problem is that it is very hard to balance utility talents between each other as it is, it becomes even harder if they have to contend for the same resource as a combat power. Unless you have clear indication from the GM that your blasting is already where it´s supposed to be for the campaign you are playing, but that takes a level of planning, understanding the system and foresight on the GM and player side that is not really always there, in my experience.

Maybe you could offer a chance to change where the divide between utility and combat lies through archetypes? I could see an utility-focused kineticist that gets a way to flex utility talents, to be, well, *actually* useful.

[Kurald Galain]

Having a system that forces you to allocate your character resources to different areas will result in more rounded characters - which are generally more fun to play that 1 trick ponies.

While I personally agree with you that rounded characters are more fun, I get the impression that a substantial amount of players disagree; so I'm not so sure if the system should force you to.

[DrMartin]

well - I´ll give you that, offering some guideline in how characters resources should be allocated runs quite contrary to the "a la carte" 3.5/PF philosophy - But! I´d argue that it is not necessarily a bad thing, per-se. A system that provide some help in making a fun *and* effective character is, in my book, a plus.

Spoiler: slight OT for where is this coming from

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On a not-too-unrelated note: maybe it´s just my personal experience, but when I explain the game to a new player and go through character creation, it all goes smoothly until Feats. "And now pick one among these 7000 options, which can do pretty much everything! Some make you hit harder with a weapon, some can improve a bit how good you are at cooking. Some of them suck, but allow you to pick better ones later on. Others don´t, they just suck!"

[Kurald Galain]

well - I´ll give you that, offering some guideline in how characters resources should be allocated runs quite contrary to the "a la carte" 3.5/PF philosophy - But! I´d argue that it is not necessarily a bad thing, per-se. A system that provide some help in making a fun *and* effective character is, in my book, a plus.

Oh, I definitely agree that allocating feats requires guidelines and/or assistance from an experienced player. But that issue doesn't really apply to kinny talents, because it's a much shorter list.

[Psyren]

I agree that rounded characters are more fun, and that good design will encourage players to naturally gravitate in that direction. However I don't think forcing those players to spend fully half their talents on infusions is the best way to get there by a long shot.

I think starting the player off with both an infusion and a non-infusion wild talent is enough to plant the seed. The division is still there (infusions being a specific type of wild talent that modify blasts and interact with things like Infusion Specialization) but your loadout is not so rigidly enforced. Maybe at each Expanded Element you do the same thing (infusion + non-infusion) so that over the course of their career, they're forced to at least have either three infusions or three utility talents.

Spoiler: slight OT for where is this coming from

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On a not-too-unrelated note: maybe it´s just my personal experience, but when I explain the game to a new player and go through character creation, it all goes smoothly until Feats. "And now pick one among these 7000 options, which can do pretty much everything! Some make you hit harder with a weapon, some can improve a bit how good you are at cooking. Some of them suck, but allow you to pick better ones later on. Others don´t, they just suck!"

As Kurald mentioned, wild talents won't cause nearly the paralysis that PF feats are capable of; but speaking for my table, we'd resolve both those questions the same way, by directing that inexperienced player toward a handbook.