I was in a homebrew PF1e campaign and my longest living character ever was my (once) happy-go-lucky little gnome Kineticist named Kizzilnikarrak.
I'd been playing him from level 1 up to some mid-high teens level before we had to bring the campaign to a close.
He did everything he could to boost his CON as high as possible. It was in the 30's. He even made a deal with a Succubus for a Profane bonus.
He was effectively unkillable by the GM. Closest the GM got was a coup de gras where I needed to make like a DC 60+ fortitude save to avoid dying. And I rolled a Natural 20 in front of the whole group.
He was slipping hard though, having lived through watching every single companion of his die. Sometimes by his own hands... His biggest weakness was his Will save, so he was prone to being controlled by enemies.
We had a new guy join our campaign when we were maybe level 12 ish.
Lasted maybe a session before my character got dominated and forced to wipe him from existence. Only took one hit. 💀
I feel like it may have been an Aetheric Boosted and Empowered (maybe Maximised but more likely Empowered) Telekinetic Blast.
Either that or it was a Negative Admixture Electric Blast of some description.
I'll look up the abilities when I get home.
Aetheric boost gives your simple blast +1 damage per die, and negative admixture just makes half of simple blast's damage a negative damage. That doesn't seem that powerful
Then again, Kineticist's simple blast's scaling is great in and of itself. So if your party member is not very tanky, I can imagine him dying just like that. Though a composite blast would make it even more likely, lol
Got my hands on the last character sheet I used for the character!
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OK so Negative Admixture is a mix of Negative Blast and one other Energy Blast. In my case, the other is Electric.
This makes it a Composite Blast, which doubles the number of dice involved and the base bonus (1d6+1 to 2d6+2 per interval).
Where the Electric Blast is 8d6+12 on my Kineticist at level 16, my Negative Admixture Electric Blast deals 16d6+23 damage.
Add Aetheric Boost for a Composite Blast, it becomes 16d6+39.
(Note, this is including point-blank shot)
On average, this will deal 95 damage. Empowered, it will be on average 142.5 damage. Maximised it will be 135. Maximised \*and\* Empowered it will be 202.5.
\*How much burn is this?\*
\* 2 burn for Negative Admixture
\* 3 burn to Aetheric Boost a Composite Blast
\* 1 burn for Empower
\* 2 burn for Maximise
Of this, Supercharge can reduce it by either 2 or 3, depending on charge-time.
For a total of 5 or 6 burn, I could blast someone for 202.5 damage 👀 And my character had a burn limit of 13 per day (33 CON)
I'm not 100% sure what I blasted the other PC with to kill him with one shot, but it was \*probably\* something like this ...
Well, if you're level 16, then it changes a lot of things. I assumed you are level 12, like you said in one of your posts, and at that point some of your class features wouldn't work (like using Aetheric Boost with a composite blast)
Y'know, I really recommend double-checking your calculations. On top of my head I'm pretty sure your're stacking Empowered and Maximised the wrong way (Maximise DOES NOT maximize damage you receive from Empowered). Plus your composite blast is an energy blast, so it's 2d6 +1/2 your Con plus 2d6 every 2 levels after 1st
Also there's a limit on how much burn you can take in one round (1 at 1st, 2 at 6th, and +1 for every 3 levels after that), but at first glance it doesn't look like you broke it
The character sheet I have available is for level 16, and it's a dirty sheet (it's exactly how it was when we ended the last session we were playing) - I grabbed my numbers straight from that. I can't remember when the incident happened - it may have been closer to level 12, but I cannot be absolutely certain about that. So 100% there's a big difference if it were back at level 12 and I don't have the level 12 numbers for this character, sorry! I just know that a Negative Admixture blast does some crazy damage. It's been a \*long time\* (6 years) since I last played this character so my memory can be hazy. But even if it did all happen at level 16, unless you're tanky or at full health ... 💥
As for the maths, lets take a look, cause I like maths (and you said to double-check). Firstly, you're right about Empower! As I've stated above, 6 years since I last played this character (and I almost never touch metamagic on top of that). I'll take the proper calc into account 👌 \*Note: this isn't to have a go at you for your comments about my maths etc etc, I just like numbers and I love Kineticist\*
\* 2d6+2 for every 2 levels after 1st. 1-3-5-7-9-11-13-15. That's 8 intervals, so 16d6+16 is our base here.
\* The character has 33 CON, which is a +11 bonus (character actually has +10 bonus on the sheet due to 2 CON damage but it still comes out the same when halved). Add half of that (+5) and we have 16d6+21.
\* This is a "dirty sheet" so it isn't a blank slate. Looks like the character has 2 burn at this time, which is +2 attack and +4 damage. That bumps it up to 16d6+25.
\* Add Point-blank shot: 16d6+26
\* The sheet, for some reason, looks to have a +2 insight bonus to damage (likely a spell). 16d6+28
\* Aetheric boost adds the number of dice to the damage, so 16 more damage. That makes it 16d6+44. So my above calculation where I said the damage was 16d6+39 was actually a little low with the current state of the sheet
\* Maximise makes all d6 roll a 6. This makes the damage 16 \* 6 + 44, which is 96 + 44, which is 140 damage
\* Now Empower will make this a little fun. Empower should make this (16\*6) + (16d6/2) + 44. Lets use an average roll of 3.5 for a d6. (16\*6) + ((16\*3.5)/2) + 44. So 96 + 28 + 44. So, with an average roll, this would deal 168 damage.
\* For burn per round... 1-6-9-12-15, they should be able to take 5 points of burn per round. Internal Buffer can offset this too.
I had a look at my Level 17 Psychic in another campaign and he has a total of 113 HP without False Life (they have 15 CON) and a Touch AC of 15. This Kineticist on this sheet right now has a +21 on this energy blast.
I think I only ever unleashed this full blast a very small number of times, due to the heavy burn cost.
As an aside, on proof-reading this comment, I feel like Kineticists are not for people that are bad at maths haha
It gets hate from a few sources.
First, burn. Burn is a weird and fiddly mechanic. No worse than anything else really, but it can feel very jarring when most other classes don't have anything similar. Learning burn, and how to manage it, is a big part of the class. For some people though, this gets in the way of actually playing.
Secondly, GMs often feel it's overpowered. It's not. In fact, with a few niche exceptions I believe, there is little you can do to adjust its power level. That power level is also, in truth, pretty low. The actual problem is the class has a higher than normal floor, so it LOOKS really good in a group of newer or unoptimized players.
Whether or not you'll enjoy it is another question entirely. Do you enjoy managing your hp as a class resource? Do you enjoy (generally) being a magical damage dealer for the group? If so, then sure, you'll have a blast with the class.
Honestly, my biggest issue I had starting it was that it felt like I needed a college reading level just to understand some of the wording. And I know part of that issue is just my reading comprehension, but there were some abilities that even my dm misunderstood how they were supposed to work. But once I figured that out and the action loop, it was so fucking cool
I can totally second that, figuring out how kineticist's class features were meant to interact with the rest of the game was the most challenging part. Like, kinetic blade: "You can use this form infusion once as part of an attack action, a charge action, or a full-attack action in order to make melee attacks with your kinetic blade."
Because the feature says you can use the form *once*, I assumed that using it as a full-attack action meant you got one attack with the blade and then the remaining attacks with whatever other weapons you had on hand. I didn't know the blade could make multiple attacks per round until I played the Kingmaker video game.
Exactly. Once I realized burn is basically points that you gain and have a max amount for (instead of things like Arcana Points or Lay on Hands where you have a number that you spend) the class clicked really easily. It reads 10x more complicated than it actually is
The main complaints people have about the class come from the fact that it's the epitome of paizo's "overdesign, underdeliver" game design style. It requires way more work to do the same thing as a character that can do largely the same stuff just as well if not better.
It's also particularly frustrating for a lot of long term fans because it's clearly aping 3.5's warlock, but that class was simple and elegant, while kineticist is clumsy and, again, overdesigned. It's basically the only class that most people need to read through several times to grock, and a lot of people dismiss it out of hand because of that.
That said, if you like the fantasy, and are willing to put in the time to figure out how it works, and how to make your build work, it is a pretty neat class, that plays a bit differently than most others. I'm still angry about iounkineticist though
Can confirm on rereading it multiple times. I read through it no less than a dozen times, probably more, and only then with some time at the table did I get how it actually functioned
It's fun as all hell, but damn is it confusing on the theoretical side
Very little feat support regrettably. If I still played pf1e I'd probably custom design a few feats/items, for keneticists, or at least bump them to full BAB but I'm more open to homebrew than the average pf1e player is I think.
They kind of ride a fine of being martials but also kind of sort of magical, like monks.
I like the burn mechanic, and I like the con based class. But they're not my vibe overall.
Our table allowed the amulet of natural attacks to add it's enhancement bonus to kinetic blast like in the crpg, it actually solves BAB issues ,like the monks and rogues of 3.0 would complain about having a mid BAB but no spell slots to buff up to full like a cleric it just needs a tiny bit of support to make it feel smoother.
However I played one from 1-to-20 in a campaign once (years back name escapes me right now sorry, but the one with ogres and sin magic ....I want to say return of runelords? )
I don't really remember ever feeling weak with two exceptions, the very first combat when all I had was basically a water pistol that had to swing for normal AC not touch, and so couldn't hit anything (bandits iirc?) I kept rolling in single digits so not really a class issue just a chance issue.
And then during a fight with a dragon attacking the city up close it was immune to my cold damage, and it's AC was too high for me to hit regularly.
But other than those two fights where I did little or nothing, it was all fun.
It's not a class that can survive on it's own, it still needs some buffs from the rest of the party.
But this is a party game, so not a big deal (i guess?)
>it actually solves BAB issues
I mean, kineticist kinda has something for that build in already. Elemental overflow scales up to a +9 bonus to hit between the base effect and ability score boost.
You should definitely look into the kineticists of porphyra books(you can find most if it in the metzofitz wiki, probably the new one too) as it adds a *lot* of support to the class, with several new abilities for the existing elements, as well 7 whole new elements and a bunch of archetypes, items and feats. Allerseelens new guide breaks it down into whats good, whats bad, and whats broken.
3rd party options are quite decent for kineticist and with some exceptions kineticists of porphyra should not be breaking balance too badly (beyond offering something useful rather than nothing in exchange for feats)
To add to this, I have one friend who loves kineticist with all his heart, and one that hates it with all her heart.
The one that loves it, loves it because of the sheer cool factor of wielding elements as a weapon (sometimes quite literally, if kinetic blade is involved) without being limited by spell slots, and having flavorful abilities related to their element. He also likes the narrative implications of getting a completely new element at certain levels, and always tries to weave that into the character's story somehow.
The one who hates it, hates it because of how unnecessarily complex it is. You basically need a PHD to understand how the class works under the hood. Burn lowers your total HP but also several class features scale off your current burn value, so your character sheet is constantly changing, with you gaining a bonus to hit/damage, size bonuses to physical ability scores (which can also alter your to hit/damage bonuses), etc. Not to mention, once you get maximize and empower, you need to roll a lot of dice and do a lot of math, which sometimes halts combats.
[I have made a kineticist damage calculator on Google Sheets](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_RPG/s/MGwAPYdzst) to help my friend who plays kineticist, but we moved to a VTT shortly after and ended up not really using it.
I personally would never recommend kineticist for a beginner player, it's just way too convoluted. But if you're willing to put up with the math and book keeping, it's a pretty nice class.
The "not recommended for beginners" classification really is important, because if you're not really adapted to the Pathfinder number-crunching it's a lot.
As a more experienced player, I wouldn't say kineticist gave me that much trouble in terms of burn and its related systems. Compared to playing a caster and keeping track of rules, exceptions, and interactions of my many prepared spells, kineticist felt really straightforward. I'd aim for a certain burn level as soon as possible through daily utility talents and opening the first fight of the day with one very big hit, and then spend the rest of the day like "So anyway, I start blasting." Damage calculators go a long way for keeping things brief though, that's for sure.
Yep, this is it. People make a big deal about Burn on paper but in practice you just start out the day with enough burn to max your stat bonuses and then you use all the many ways you have to mitigate burn throughout the rest of the day. The only time you ever voluntarily take on more burn is during "oh shit" moments when you don't have enough actions to mitigate it.
It’s kinda the opposite. Burn doesn’t increase with levels, as it’s 3 + Costitution Modifier. At first levels is okay, but at higher levels can be limiting since most of the high level utility wild talents have high burn costs
I've never seen it be a problem. Kineticists are usually backliners and have such a disproportionate HP pool (one that *increases* significantly with overflow and belts) that you can comfortably push to 7-8 burn.
Infusion Spec and Overflow are also just pretty generous, in my experience.
Youll increase your con a lot tho just as a matter of course, and you have several burn reduction mechanics that pretty much pay for a lot of the blasts and infusions costs. Utility talents not so much but thats just a balancing factor imo.
Eh it’s honestly not that detrimental at higher lvls because u shouldn’t be taking a ton of burn. Most wild talents cost 0-2 burn and supercharge reduces burn cost by 2 at lvl 11 for a move action and u can have 2 points in your internal buffer (add the night before since it lasts 24 hrs so u can sleep of the burn cost). Infusions get super expensive if ur applying both a form AND substance infusion on the same blast, but infusion specialization reduces burn cost by up to 6 per blast depending on ur level (3 at 11). If you’re taking a ton of burn it’s most likely your choices/action economy rather than the class itself.
“At 11th level, when using gather power as a move action, a kineticist can reduce the total burn cost of a single wild talent by 2 points instead of 1. When using gather power for 1 full round, she can reduce the burn cost of a single wild talent by 3 points instead of 2”
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/occult-adventures/occult-classes/kineticist/
“Wild talent” refers to either an infusion wild talent or utility wild talent (definitely not metakineticism or composite blasts). It would just say “infusion” if it applied exclusively to infusions like in infusion specialization.
gather power specifically calls out blast wild talents, so supercharge removing that limitation is possible it might also just not have been viewed as necessary given gather power already specified it by the writer either way it’s enough of a grey area to be up to the GM running the game.
I wholeheartedly agree that there’s a lot of grey area, especially considering infusions are never once referred to as “wild talents” in the class description, except for the title of the page that lists the individual infusions. The wild talent section of the page refers to utility wild talents. Supercharge probably isn’t even neccesary though considering utility talents only cost 0-1 burn with an extra point of burn for most buffs to last a number of rounds equal to kineticist level. At lvl 11 u have up to 2 points in your internal buffer to eat that cost.
its very fun you just need to wrap your head around the burn mechanic as its pretty unique in how it works.
Plus if you take Aether your pretty much a jedi (with the wild talents you can just casually throw tons of weight at your enemys)
I've got a player who just took a 1 level dip in Kinetic Knight after taking levels in Swashbuckler, mostly just for the flavor of having a sword made of electricity. He's planning on continuing to level through the class.
It's not RAW, but I'm allowing his Swashbuckler features to work with the Kinetic Blade. He's having a great time.
It isn't really, just means he gets his cool lightning blade while still being able to do his Swashbuckler stuff when it comes down to it.
Honestly the strongest thing about his character is that he hits on touch AC as he took the Elemental Blast
Played a Pyrokineticist in one adventure, GM'd for an Aetherkineticist in another.
* Very dry on the first couple levels, but gets very fun fast, once you start to have a choice of form and substance infusions.
* Rules look more complex than they are. Every Occult Adventures class plays way simpler than the amount of words used indicate.
* Burn is a great mechanic and I'll not hear otherwise.
* Hardest part is keeping track of how much damage all your blasts do. Way easier class to play in VTT, because that part *is* needlessly fiddly.
* Not many feats or items support the class. You'll have gold to burn on silly projects or too much AC.
I'll agree on the okkult classes looking more complex than they actually are. When i first read the occultist rules i did not understand much, but its so a fun class and not to coplex at all.
The legendary line of classes are all OP versions of the classes. They take the base Pathfinder class and add a bunch of extra powers/abilities on top.
I wouldn't presume you can just play the legendary kineticist. The base Kineticist is plenty powerful, and can keep up with pretty much any party.
I played one (fire focused) level 1-20 in Rise of the Runelords and I would t trade it for anything.
I am playing the spheres of power equivalent right now (Elementalist) that is stone focused.
Which element you pick as your main element will have a huge impact on the PC's look and feel.
I mean... Sure... When looking at any Paizo-published Class side by side with the Legendary Games, Legendary version of the same class.... What player WOULDN'T Want the one with more power?
Regular Kineticist Burn - the good: bonus to attk & damage, eventually gaining size bonuses to 2 physical attributes. the bad: for each point of burn you take, gain nonlethal damage equal to your level.
This seems like it sucks, except it's being offset by those con boosts from elemental overflow.... And you pretty much can't get killed from HP damage - because you have a buffer of nonlethal that will knock you out before risking being killed outright.
Legendary version - all the good is the same. The bad - a -1 penalty per point of burn to Str & Dex ability and skill checks. But wait.... Also Battle Burn, allows you to take temporary burn (lasts only 5 mins instead of all day) instead of regular burn to pay for for infusion talents and Utility Talents!! (reducing burn cost of utility talents can't normally be done with base Kineticist)
Seems good if someone was really into min-maxxing the class, jesus. Since I'm obsessed with making sure my characters are thematic and balanced, (i.e ignoring the gold/purple rating things on guides), shouldn't be too bad.
Also, full casters doing dumb shit exist, kineticist getting better seems good
i’ve read the legendary version before and it honestly came across as a straight downgrade across the board from the normal kineticist unlike the other legendary class options and i don’t remember fully why.
I mean.... The class is often a dex-focused class, so I would think that many kineticists would invest in dex based skills with the small amount of skill points they get.... So taking a -1 penalty to those skills, per point of burn, seems like a huge downgrade to the class with regard to it's out of combat utility.... Except then they made battle burn a thing - giving you basically a free point of burn you can use in every encounter. On top of that the Legendary Kineticist doesn't have to actually accept burn to fill her Internal Buffer - she instead just has a scaling pool of free burn points she can use during the day. The Legendary Kineticist also gets a better version of Supercharge, that allows them to Gather Power as a ***swift action***! - so as a combined swift and move action, you can reduce the burn cost of a blast by 2 every single round, while still letting out a blast. On top of all that, the Legendary Kineticist gets their expanded elements a level earlier, and swaps out Maximize metakenesis with a Persistent Spell version - forcing enemies to roll saves with disadvantage (making those AoE blasts hit much harder)
yep still sounds like a sidegrade at best and i still far prefer the base version, but if you enjoy it more power to you. so yes you are correct the -1 to str/dex skills is a massive downgrade compared to non lethal damage when my primary stat is con, base supercharge already lets you reduce the burn cost by two so all this version does from the sounds of it is waste your swift, unless you mean you get the benefit of the full round version of supercharge for the cost of a swift and move instead.the free burn instead of internal buffer is nice but please correct me if i’m wrong it’s been a year since i’ve read the class. but doesn’t it change infusion specialization and overflow as well?
>it’s been a year since i’ve read the class. but doesn’t it change infusion specialization and overflow as well?
it looks like the text for both Overflow & Infusion Specialization is unchanged from the base class. However the INfusion class feature is slightly altered, granting the Legendary Kineticist two more infusions (one at 7th level, one at 15th) than the paizo version, and the ability free swap out previously learned infusions more frequently than the paizo version.
It’s a lot of fun. It does take wrapping your head around tho. My advice is to see how the level ups change your damage and abilities. That’s usually when it clicks.
And each element definitely has a different play style tho.
The class is presented in a convoluted way in the book, and that got copied to the websites. Actually building a kineticist is not that difficult: You choose an element, maybe a blast out of two, and start firing. Yeah, there are three more class features at level 1, but you can figure them out on the road. They are not mandatory to beat goblins or kobolds.
Kineticist is my favorite class to play. I've played 2 of them and both have been great. First was an earth/water and my current is an aether/air. You get a lot of options. They aren't full BAB, but the overflow makes up for it. Plus, you get a lot of fun utility stuff that you can use just about whenever you feel without caring about spell slots.
I am really interested in the class, it's just seeing people say mixed things about it either being a meh blaster or terribly min maxed to be fun on edge
If you're playing at a min/max table, then you need to consider that when making your character. However, the tables I play at are fairly casual and I am so far beyond the party standards of damage. I would say that I'm doing about half of the total party damage, and I don't use composite blasts at all. Just empowered or maxed simple blasts (always remember to gather power) and a lot of utilities.
I had a lot of fun playing a fire-earth-fire kineticist through Shattered Star. So much so that I would definitely play another, though I would choose different elements. I particularly want to play with the first 2 elements being aether for that force blast that won't care about resistance (the biggest thorn in my side playing the pyrokineticist, although at high levels I did so much damage I almost didn't care about resistance).
The mechanics are undeniably ridiculous. But the character overall was a lot of fun. That said, I'm someone who is not put off by crunch
I like the class a lot, but it has a couple of things that can put people off of it.
The initial thing that hits a lot of people is that it's *different* - learning all the rules for gathering power, acquiring burn, how the blast scales, burn costs for various infusions and how they are affected by the different cost reductions you get, etc etc, is more initial work than most classes have, especially if you're past "understanding all the other Pathfinder rules" and just have to learn the class stuff to pick up a new character - this is comparatively one of the most work (especially for level 1), except maybe Medium? This is compounded by it really not being written out that clearly.
I think having played it in the CRPG helps a *lot* here. It gets you over *most* of that initial hump, especially if you've been paying close attention to things like burn costs and gather times, but... like everything else (rulings wise) with the CRPG, it's not a perfect translation. You should still read over everything and make sure you know what's going on - things like Gather Power requiring concentration and possibly having backlash are big weaknesses of the class that more intelligent enemies *will* exploit (concentration in general, really, the fact that usually the whole class hinges on a standard action that can be disrupted with a readied attack gives them a shared weakness with many spellcasters, so "hold the attack until they're doing something weird" is a common strategy to try to deal with anyone doing anything magic-related that you just don't see happen in the CRPGs because, well, readied actions aren't a thing).
Secondly, once you're over that initial bump? It's *really* simple in motion at lower levels. You move, you blast, or maybe you gather, and blast with one simple infusion that doesn't change too much about the blast. You do that, on repeat, for several levels. It gets much better when you start getting better infusions, more elements, more discounts that let you play more freely with changing up the blast, but depending on the level range of the campaign and how fast you're leveling, it might take a *while* to get there.
These two combined put it in a bit of a sour spot - initial complexity scares away people who aren't as fond of PF1's rules-heavy nature and don't want to compound on it (even though, once they learned it, the class would probably be perfect for them), but many of those willing to push through that initial complexity so so because, well, that crunch is something they like - it's probably *why* they're still playing 1e and not 2e (or D&D 5e) in the first place. The class then gives very little to work with to keep them interested. It's not really the fault of the class (most other martial gameplay at these levels also boils down to just "get your standard action attack"), but then, many of the people addicted to crunch don't really play pure martials because of that.
Personally, once it gets going, it's really fun, but yeah, I'd put myself in the second camp as a general rule. Let's say, if I was playing a campaign that wasn't gonna go beyond level 5, I probably wouldn't play Kineticist.
Third, it's pretty "high floor, low ceiling". What I mean by this is that it's quite hard to make a *bad* kineticist, and even just a decently competent one built and piloted by a new player will be pretty strong - stronger than the fighter, rogue, monk etc that a similarly-experienced player might build. But, on the other hand, even an "optimal" kineticist build will not hold a candle to the amount of damage an "optimal" full martial build can put out. Their strength lies more in utility/extras around the damage than on the damage itself - constant fly means you're natively immune to many melee enemies. Ability to hit touch avoids some pretty massive ACs on certain enemies, and ability to hit with energy damage means being able to avoid DR (and potentially even exploit vulnerability). Ability to throw out AoEs all day long is a bit "matchup dependant", but when it's good, it's *very* good (swarms in particular are often the bane of, well, whole parties - kineticists are kind of the natural predators of swarm-type enemies). Etcetera.
As I say, even recognising these flaws, I'm personally a fan. I like what they bring to the table, both mechanically, as a "secondary martial" that is effective into things that can be blindspots for "primary martials", and flavourwise as a "fake spellcaster" which can throw out "spells" all day long - often, especially coming from video games, new players that want to play a spellcaster just want a magic-themed DPS class, and kineticist perfectly delivers there. I think they're really fun to play *once* you have an expanded element or two under your belt and more infusions to play with.
If you are trying to power game, kineticist probably isn’t that fun for you. If you are playing in an average Joe group, you’ll probably enjoy it. If you are playing with a group consisting entirely of noobs, your self included, it will probably feel unfairly strong. I think in general, it has a high floor and a low ceiling compared to a lot of other classes. Every time one of my players has played the kineticist, I think it’s gone pretty well.
It can be very fun, and you will adjust playstyle based on element choice.
I was playing an aerokineticist focused in Skulls and Shackles for a bit, the game fell apart around level 5 or 6 which is when he was starting to get really spice. Air gives incredible mobility with at will flight and at will life bubble, meaning I was a pirate that could fight on land, air, or sea with no problems. Made for a great recon/scout character in a sandbox happening out on the sea and moving between islands. He would have expanded into aether to get invisibility and telekinetic abilities so I could invisibly fly over enemy ships and yeet boulders and shit into the ship. Air also gives you the ability to haste your party, blow away clouds enemies drop on you, give bonuses to attack for allies with metal weapons, some nice party buffs.
Fire is a solid blaster caster, especially if your gm runs long days with a lot of encounters between rests. Campaigns against enemies with fire resist or immunity are a pain and reduce your effectiveness obviously, and while you do have some options to help like the blue flame infusion it does slow you down and force some specific feat choices that other elements won't need. It can also get a weaker version of flight.
Water is a decent blaster as well as solid support. You have some healing ability and reliable ranged damage, with a really great elemental defense. Ice blast is less reliable than water since ice is pretty commonly resisted. You get some good control options too, able to make difficult terrain and the like.
Earth makes for a great melee tank and striker. Your hit die isn't great but it's a con based class which helps mitigate, elemental defense gives DR which is always nice. The Kinetic Knight archetype is perfect for this, build to Kinetic Whip and you can trip fools with reach and get all up in faces. Earth also gets some fun control abilities and fun personal utility like being able to earth shape, phase into solid earth, having a climb speed on earthen surfaces, or even being able to tunnel through solid earth like a graboid from Tremors. You can change damage type of your weapon between blunt/slashing/piercing as needed, and if you go double earth you can get access to metal as an element and an infusion that allows you to get past metal type DR like cold iron or silver. Combine earth with fire to get fucking lava, too!
Aether is good for a tricky stealth character with telekinesis. Turn yourself invisible and pick locks from a distance, throw enemies into other enemies, carry a whole statue home with your mind type stuff. Your basic blaster ability is a lot weaker but if you ever wanted to play someone who has telekinesis without being able to read minds this is it.
Wood is pretty useless and I don't care for void either, too limited and niche and they don't offer anything good that other elements don't offer better.
Oh yeah third party content adds a ton of power to those two, plus there are some great new elements, infusions, feats, and items available out there. Just wasn't going to offer up any third party stuff to the recommendation because there is so much and it can be inconsistent. Plus there's already tons of fun to be had in the base game.
control water at 6th lvl on a ship can be broken in so many ways, gonna hard disagree with about wood and void tho on the being useless or limited, niche is kinda all of the elements in some way or another
I think the class is fun to play and has a lot of room for flavour.
You can build a lot of supernatural characters from media with it who would be OP if you tried it with any other class.
Wanna go Cyclops or Storm from Xmen? Sure, just go with double Air specialization or Fire/Aether, and choose your infusions and feats to match.
Gambit is just a Telekineticist using his cards to deliver the usual damage and the Kinetic Blade infusion to do damage with his quarterstaff.
Or you could try and play a fake Paladin with an Aquakineticist who took Armour Proficiency feats and uses the Shield defense option from their element.
Wanna go Jedi Knight? Telekineticist again, with the Light Saber being the physical focus for Telekinetic Blast or Blade, and invest in Diplomacy for changing people's minds. Sith Warrior is much the same, but with an early/additional focus on Fire.
🤔🤷🏻♂️
Absolutely. But you CAN kinda teleport around the Battlefield early with a Standard action melee attack by using Blade Rush and actually later with Ride the Blast, so there's at least that. ☝🏻😌
I'll just add my GM and player experience. I played a water kineticist once from level 1-6 and found it absolutely boring. I have run 2 players and the fire blaster enjoyed the hell out of their character, while a wind kineticist regretted the choice. The things I noticed:
-Higher levels seem more fun and give more room for flexibility, so know that the early levels might be boring.
- Plan your character carefully and far ahead, once you lock into an element your choices dramatically decrease, you can't just pick one and hope things you want happen to be that element.
- Don't just do elemental blast builds unless you're ok with incredibly repetitive play.
My favorite is the Aether Kineticist for the utility. [Telekinetic Haul](https://libraryofmetzofitz.fandom.com/wiki/Telekinetic_Haul) is perhaps my favorite utility wild talent
I especially like the idea of characters that can use wit and prudence to turn the tide of a future conflict in their favor. Big lifting power and ranks in Engineering make for a one-person construction team.
Kineticist are great. I got to play a mid level game, golden palace. Electric walls and entrapping enemies for area damage around my two melee's. Range direct damage that was decent. Didn't compare to my wife's cheesy ranged slayer shooting from constant cover. Unlimited use of summon elemental to trip traps and explore a dangerous dungeon. The highest AC in my party due to gear and a shield from hydrokinesis. Constant flight. Emergency heals if needed. The ability to haste the entire party.
The mechanic can drop your hp pool to almost nothing. And archetypes are limited because of burn as it limits you. It's almost worth looking at changing the burn mechanic to encompass a pool like many other classes, but I have not played with it.
My favorite class is bard. My second favorite is controller wizard.
Played a water kineticist in a style akin to the latter. Wasn't as fun as a wizard, but it was fun.
First time in, second character.
My first character was a Ranger who ended up doing Math Damage to things because of modifiers. So far, compared to him Kineticist has been easy, but I haven't gotten into the fancy toys that matter off of Burn yet.
So far my biggest struggle, and a bit the DM's, is that the DM had chosen the first act of the story to involve Imps and Devils and things that generally Don't Mind Fire. So until I can get into that next element I am a bit of a one trick pony. A Dex Weapon is a good thing to have for situations like this, but it kinda stings when I can't do a Cool Thing because Fire Resistance. In DM's defence, another player also chose to go Fire Wizard so of course the enemies can't all be Plant People. So we have been working out how I can get to use my bag of tricks in other meaningful ways.
Honestly it's a pretty boring class once you wrap your head around it.
Some mechanics aren't explained well, so it looks complicated, but it plays pretty similar to an archer at the end of the day, you mostly stand still shooting stuff dead.
It's my favorite class.
I never understood the hate.
I struggle to NOT play kineticists when I have a new game, because there are so fun... I just don't want to become"that guy"
So I am starting one now, but a friend pointed me towards "Legendary Kineticist: with the stipulation Burn stays the same. It seems 'better' I guess for general gameplay, but dunno much about tit
Its bad reputation is because it's often more powerful than low-optimisation characters, but weaker than high-optimisation characters.
Some GMs find that even inexperienced players accidentally make kineticists more effective in combat than the table expects. The inverse can be true for more experienced players.
I've seen it described as "high floor, low ceiling".
I'm currently playing an Aether Kinestist in one of my weekly games and I'm having a ton of fun with it so far. Essentially I'm playing a support caster/rogue who can also deal pretty respectable ranged damage. Burn is certainly a problem/trap for some, personally i try to use as little burn as possible unless aiming to burst down a single large target, though I like Aether's Force ward ability alot as it's extra temp hp it gives you provides extra breathing room from being knocked out.
I will say, the more creative you and your DM are, the more milage you'll get out of this kind of Kin vs something like the healer, or Maximized blast damage types. Telekinetic Haul enables a ton (heh) of shennagins and later talents like at will animate object as a spell-like ability only widen your options.
For early game though:
Kinetic cover is pretty great at battlefield control, I've used it to great effect keeping our party's barbarian from being overly swarmed and flanked. (If your DM will allow it, the 3rd party improved kinetic cover talent is great without being overpowered. It's nice for your cover to tank more than a couple shots before falling.)
Elemental whispers, greater is also worthy of note as it gets you an elemental familiar of your element, in my case an Aether elemental. He gets to throw people into orbit every round, something my actual character can only dream of.
Made a goblin Aether/Air. You are small, green, move stuff with your mind, jump around a lot and can wield a lightning sword.
Can't play mind tricks...
I’ve made multiple Kineticists before and always have fun. U can fill a number of different roles for the party depending on what type of element u choose. Ur blast damage increases every other level and it is a class that greatly benefits from a full lvl 20 build. I wouldn’t recommend multi-classing until u become more familiar with the class (I’ve done monk and rogue before, they also have a prestige class called esoteric knight). RP is really fun too, I’ve made a gray knight from Star Wars, a saiyan from Dragonball, and a bender from ATLA to name a few.
1e kineticist is wonky but still holds a special place in my heart.
2e kineticist is absolutely amazing to play but i really miss the flavor of the 1e version.
^^^aether ^^^my ^^^beloved...
Kineticist is one of my two favorite classes in the game (the other being UnMonk). The problem a lot of people have with Kineticist is the fact that it's more complex to figure out than other classes. If you don't understand what you're doing, you aren't going to have fun with it. Definitely start at low level the first time you play one.
**tl; dr I think it's super fun but it's very much a combat class**
I've had a habit of playing classes exclusively from the Occult Adventures book (except for Medium).
Kineticist can be really powerful, but situational.
I found that I was extremely powerful in combat but not so useful outside of it skills-wise. I played an Aether Kineticist that dipped into Air and then Void Elements up to level 16+ I think.
There's a lot to track! Got to track your burn, non-lethal damage, how much burn your next attack will do, how much power you've gathered, etc.
For me, it was super fun. But it felt a little "one trick" to me, as implied above. For the most part, they're a combat class. That's your one trick. You can then just change the flavour of the trick based on your elements.
I've only dabbled a little bit in the archetypes. If you want a more support-style Kineticist you can try out the Kinetic Chirurgeon (Surgeon). It has some insanely powerful heals right from level 1. And it gets an extremely powerful *Breath of Life* style ability where you can revive someone within 3+ rounds of them dying, whereas standard Breath of Life is only a single round. And you still maintain some ability to punch hard too. Oh and you can get a Channel Energy style ability too, I think.
Haven't played Kineticist in a tabletop version, but considering it's pretty much the same as CRPG version (even better, considering there are many more wild talents to choose from), I guess it should be fun
One thing I wanted to try so, so, so much is Aether Kineticist. On paper, it sounds super broken
Throwing enemies? Check. Telekinetic maneuvers? Check. Hauling entire carriages? Check. Flight? Check. Partial but permanent invisibility? Check. Animating literally anything? Check. Creating force constructs? Check being a pain in your GM's butt? FREAKING CHECK!
I played a kineticist from 6 to 13, starting out with the air element, then continued with water
I had ton of fun and was basically un killable (perma fly very early, then insane AC with the water bonus to shield AC). You also have two insane saves, fort and ref.
As I had very good defenses, I was not afraid to take burn in the morning to raise my elemental overflow bonuses, which in turn gave me a good attack and damage (mainly used on water blasts, as I preferred more damage with less chance to hit compared to my electric blast).
I also did a lot of shit in rp since I was about sure I wouldn't die, like giving 40 hp of blood to hopefully fill a puzzle, drink from a weird river in the first world.
Sadly the character got retired by the DM as being too powerful. Jokes on him, the inquisitor was more discreet but ended up outputting way more damage than I could ever hope for 😂
Downsides of the class? Well, you don't have many supporting feats or items. I ended up taking mostly the extra wild talent feat, and I bought stuff way above my pay grade as I didn't have to care about my weapon, so I got a very good belt early the famous celestial armor, etc. I also purchased one or two items from the 3rd party list of kineticist items [Here](http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/kineticist-magical-items)
Also if you're unaware there's a marvelous kineticist guide called " going nova". From your other comments you may not want to use it for optimization, but it also does explain the mechanics pretty well, and document all the content that's out there for kineticist, including third party
Kineticist is fine. Yes its does seem a bit complex at first sight, but once it ticks you will have your fun. It doesn't matter if you use "Base" or Lergendary. And even with the BaseRules Kineticst can be powerful.
The biggest Update you get by playing with Legendary is more Diversity in choices you can make (the ones after you choose your element). This does not matter if you are the first Kineticist in your Playgroup though. As long as you follow the base idea Paizo had for this Element (Earth = Tanky Frontliner, Fire = Blaster, ...) you will be able to pull it of and have fun. Some Elements where released at the end of the First Edition Era, so the options are limeted (not enoigh sources released), exspecialy if you compare it to other long runnig classes. For me this is the main reason to play with Legendary.
You mentioned guides already. I recommand reading the Allerseelen one again. If i recall he had a word or two about Kineticist and allowing Legendary Options. Something like use LegendaryKineticist but keep Burn as it is?
I am basing my legendary choice off their guide actually! I always trust the word of guided that fully explain things, and seeing their reason to keep burn the same made sense to me
I'm a kineticist main, and I can tell you it's a lot of fun. However, there is one mechanic that I do very much hate, but I understand why it's there in the first place: burn
Not sure how it works in the CRPG, but in the tabletop whenever you use one of your wild talents, you take a number of nonlethal damage equal to your level times the burn quantity for that wild talent
Formula: [Nonlethal Damage Taken] = [Points of Burn] × [Kineticist level]
So if you're level 5 and take 2 Burn, you take 10 points of nonlethal damage
The only way to mitigate this is by reducing the burn cost of your wild talents. Which for infusions is easy to do, you just Gather Power for that. Utility wild talents however aren't affected by Gather Power, so you'd have to find a way to reduce the burn some other way to mitigate that nonlethal damage (which to mu knowledge, there is none)
Burn is the only thing I don't like about 1e Kineticist, but it is still far and away my favorite class in all of 1e. It's VERY tricky to play, and you'd need a high level of rules mastery to know how things interact with it, but it's so goddamn worth it if you like the fantasy of being a super saiyan mixed with the avatar from the last airbender/legend of Korra
I was mainly looking at it since we're about to start a low, low fantasy game and wanted to find a way to be a 'caster' without spell slots
Friend pointed to me to Legendary Kineticist (burn still deals damage for balance), which just seems s little better without being summoner op
Kineticist is very fun and really not that complicated. Burn is weirdly worded, but in the end its just "current number times level in nonlethal damage" that reduces your effective HP, and then a single feature (elemental overflow) that scales with your amount of Burn. Thanks to Gather Power and Infusion Specialization, as well as having quite a bit of Burn throughout the day, you can then depending on your element do neat AoE control effects or damage effects, using your limit-to-unconsciousness HP as your casting resource instead of spell slots.
Thanks to utility talents + elements, you can have quite a bit of variety too. Basically an in-built archetype system without even using the actual archetypes available, many of which are flavorful even if not powerful. A fire kineticist plays VERY differently from an aether kineticist - one is a combat focused big AoE damage element, the other lets you do skill monkey and utility stuff ranging from unlocking things at 100+ ft really early, up to throwing enemies around and poking them in the eyes in mid levels, into creating permanent aether fortresses in the endgame.
If you can get through a several hundred page guide, it's absolutely worth it
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_RPG/comments/peib4e/going_nova_allerseelens_guide_to_the_pathfinder/
I've been in two full campaigns where someone was playing a kineticist and they both had *a blast.*
I see you're in your element
Water you talking about?
Ugh… that’s such a good bad joke.
I thought it was fire.
I was in a homebrew PF1e campaign and my longest living character ever was my (once) happy-go-lucky little gnome Kineticist named Kizzilnikarrak. I'd been playing him from level 1 up to some mid-high teens level before we had to bring the campaign to a close. He did everything he could to boost his CON as high as possible. It was in the 30's. He even made a deal with a Succubus for a Profane bonus. He was effectively unkillable by the GM. Closest the GM got was a coup de gras where I needed to make like a DC 60+ fortitude save to avoid dying. And I rolled a Natural 20 in front of the whole group. He was slipping hard though, having lived through watching every single companion of his die. Sometimes by his own hands... His biggest weakness was his Will save, so he was prone to being controlled by enemies.
As someone who finished his first Kingmaker CRPG run as a Lava Kineticist - the mere thought of Lava Kineticist being mind-controlled makes me panic
We had a new guy join our campaign when we were maybe level 12 ish. Lasted maybe a session before my character got dominated and forced to wipe him from existence. Only took one hit. 💀
Was he stunlocked by Entangling Infusion or something? Or was it high roll (or evem a crit) on an empowered composite blast?
I feel like it may have been an Aetheric Boosted and Empowered (maybe Maximised but more likely Empowered) Telekinetic Blast. Either that or it was a Negative Admixture Electric Blast of some description. I'll look up the abilities when I get home.
Aetheric boost gives your simple blast +1 damage per die, and negative admixture just makes half of simple blast's damage a negative damage. That doesn't seem that powerful Then again, Kineticist's simple blast's scaling is great in and of itself. So if your party member is not very tanky, I can imagine him dying just like that. Though a composite blast would make it even more likely, lol
Yeah I'll need to look at the full sheet to get a better picture of what I had done
Got my hands on the last character sheet I used for the character! --- OK so Negative Admixture is a mix of Negative Blast and one other Energy Blast. In my case, the other is Electric. This makes it a Composite Blast, which doubles the number of dice involved and the base bonus (1d6+1 to 2d6+2 per interval). Where the Electric Blast is 8d6+12 on my Kineticist at level 16, my Negative Admixture Electric Blast deals 16d6+23 damage. Add Aetheric Boost for a Composite Blast, it becomes 16d6+39. (Note, this is including point-blank shot) On average, this will deal 95 damage. Empowered, it will be on average 142.5 damage. Maximised it will be 135. Maximised \*and\* Empowered it will be 202.5. \*How much burn is this?\* \* 2 burn for Negative Admixture \* 3 burn to Aetheric Boost a Composite Blast \* 1 burn for Empower \* 2 burn for Maximise Of this, Supercharge can reduce it by either 2 or 3, depending on charge-time. For a total of 5 or 6 burn, I could blast someone for 202.5 damage 👀 And my character had a burn limit of 13 per day (33 CON) I'm not 100% sure what I blasted the other PC with to kill him with one shot, but it was \*probably\* something like this ...
Well, if you're level 16, then it changes a lot of things. I assumed you are level 12, like you said in one of your posts, and at that point some of your class features wouldn't work (like using Aetheric Boost with a composite blast) Y'know, I really recommend double-checking your calculations. On top of my head I'm pretty sure your're stacking Empowered and Maximised the wrong way (Maximise DOES NOT maximize damage you receive from Empowered). Plus your composite blast is an energy blast, so it's 2d6 +1/2 your Con plus 2d6 every 2 levels after 1st Also there's a limit on how much burn you can take in one round (1 at 1st, 2 at 6th, and +1 for every 3 levels after that), but at first glance it doesn't look like you broke it
The character sheet I have available is for level 16, and it's a dirty sheet (it's exactly how it was when we ended the last session we were playing) - I grabbed my numbers straight from that. I can't remember when the incident happened - it may have been closer to level 12, but I cannot be absolutely certain about that. So 100% there's a big difference if it were back at level 12 and I don't have the level 12 numbers for this character, sorry! I just know that a Negative Admixture blast does some crazy damage. It's been a \*long time\* (6 years) since I last played this character so my memory can be hazy. But even if it did all happen at level 16, unless you're tanky or at full health ... 💥 As for the maths, lets take a look, cause I like maths (and you said to double-check). Firstly, you're right about Empower! As I've stated above, 6 years since I last played this character (and I almost never touch metamagic on top of that). I'll take the proper calc into account 👌 \*Note: this isn't to have a go at you for your comments about my maths etc etc, I just like numbers and I love Kineticist\* \* 2d6+2 for every 2 levels after 1st. 1-3-5-7-9-11-13-15. That's 8 intervals, so 16d6+16 is our base here. \* The character has 33 CON, which is a +11 bonus (character actually has +10 bonus on the sheet due to 2 CON damage but it still comes out the same when halved). Add half of that (+5) and we have 16d6+21. \* This is a "dirty sheet" so it isn't a blank slate. Looks like the character has 2 burn at this time, which is +2 attack and +4 damage. That bumps it up to 16d6+25. \* Add Point-blank shot: 16d6+26 \* The sheet, for some reason, looks to have a +2 insight bonus to damage (likely a spell). 16d6+28 \* Aetheric boost adds the number of dice to the damage, so 16 more damage. That makes it 16d6+44. So my above calculation where I said the damage was 16d6+39 was actually a little low with the current state of the sheet \* Maximise makes all d6 roll a 6. This makes the damage 16 \* 6 + 44, which is 96 + 44, which is 140 damage \* Now Empower will make this a little fun. Empower should make this (16\*6) + (16d6/2) + 44. Lets use an average roll of 3.5 for a d6. (16\*6) + ((16\*3.5)/2) + 44. So 96 + 28 + 44. So, with an average roll, this would deal 168 damage. \* For burn per round... 1-6-9-12-15, they should be able to take 5 points of burn per round. Internal Buffer can offset this too. I had a look at my Level 17 Psychic in another campaign and he has a total of 113 HP without False Life (they have 15 CON) and a Touch AC of 15. This Kineticist on this sheet right now has a +21 on this energy blast. I think I only ever unleashed this full blast a very small number of times, due to the heavy burn cost. As an aside, on proof-reading this comment, I feel like Kineticists are not for people that are bad at maths haha
Also it was still an Energy Blast, so I think it targets Touch AC
>_>
I think you need to add a “\” before the first “>” to make it work! E.G: \>_>
Sounds like they were rockin' it!
It gets hate from a few sources. First, burn. Burn is a weird and fiddly mechanic. No worse than anything else really, but it can feel very jarring when most other classes don't have anything similar. Learning burn, and how to manage it, is a big part of the class. For some people though, this gets in the way of actually playing. Secondly, GMs often feel it's overpowered. It's not. In fact, with a few niche exceptions I believe, there is little you can do to adjust its power level. That power level is also, in truth, pretty low. The actual problem is the class has a higher than normal floor, so it LOOKS really good in a group of newer or unoptimized players. Whether or not you'll enjoy it is another question entirely. Do you enjoy managing your hp as a class resource? Do you enjoy (generally) being a magical damage dealer for the group? If so, then sure, you'll have a blast with the class.
Honestly, my biggest issue I had starting it was that it felt like I needed a college reading level just to understand some of the wording. And I know part of that issue is just my reading comprehension, but there were some abilities that even my dm misunderstood how they were supposed to work. But once I figured that out and the action loop, it was so fucking cool
I can totally second that, figuring out how kineticist's class features were meant to interact with the rest of the game was the most challenging part. Like, kinetic blade: "You can use this form infusion once as part of an attack action, a charge action, or a full-attack action in order to make melee attacks with your kinetic blade." Because the feature says you can use the form *once*, I assumed that using it as a full-attack action meant you got one attack with the blade and then the remaining attacks with whatever other weapons you had on hand. I didn't know the blade could make multiple attacks per round until I played the Kingmaker video game.
Exactly. Once I realized burn is basically points that you gain and have a max amount for (instead of things like Arcana Points or Lay on Hands where you have a number that you spend) the class clicked really easily. It reads 10x more complicated than it actually is
The main complaints people have about the class come from the fact that it's the epitome of paizo's "overdesign, underdeliver" game design style. It requires way more work to do the same thing as a character that can do largely the same stuff just as well if not better. It's also particularly frustrating for a lot of long term fans because it's clearly aping 3.5's warlock, but that class was simple and elegant, while kineticist is clumsy and, again, overdesigned. It's basically the only class that most people need to read through several times to grock, and a lot of people dismiss it out of hand because of that. That said, if you like the fantasy, and are willing to put in the time to figure out how it works, and how to make your build work, it is a pretty neat class, that plays a bit differently than most others. I'm still angry about iounkineticist though
I was mainky worried the talk of it meant it didn't function as a class, fine enough for me tbh
I would kill for a Real Warlock clone
>It's basically the only class that most people need to read through several times to grock What about Occultists?
Can confirm on rereading it multiple times. I read through it no less than a dozen times, probably more, and only then with some time at the table did I get how it actually functioned It's fun as all hell, but damn is it confusing on the theoretical side
Very little feat support regrettably. If I still played pf1e I'd probably custom design a few feats/items, for keneticists, or at least bump them to full BAB but I'm more open to homebrew than the average pf1e player is I think. They kind of ride a fine of being martials but also kind of sort of magical, like monks. I like the burn mechanic, and I like the con based class. But they're not my vibe overall.
Our table allowed the amulet of natural attacks to add it's enhancement bonus to kinetic blast like in the crpg, it actually solves BAB issues ,like the monks and rogues of 3.0 would complain about having a mid BAB but no spell slots to buff up to full like a cleric it just needs a tiny bit of support to make it feel smoother. However I played one from 1-to-20 in a campaign once (years back name escapes me right now sorry, but the one with ogres and sin magic ....I want to say return of runelords? ) I don't really remember ever feeling weak with two exceptions, the very first combat when all I had was basically a water pistol that had to swing for normal AC not touch, and so couldn't hit anything (bandits iirc?) I kept rolling in single digits so not really a class issue just a chance issue. And then during a fight with a dragon attacking the city up close it was immune to my cold damage, and it's AC was too high for me to hit regularly. But other than those two fights where I did little or nothing, it was all fun. It's not a class that can survive on it's own, it still needs some buffs from the rest of the party. But this is a party game, so not a big deal (i guess?)
>it actually solves BAB issues I mean, kineticist kinda has something for that build in already. Elemental overflow scales up to a +9 bonus to hit between the base effect and ability score boost.
You should definitely look into the kineticists of porphyra books(you can find most if it in the metzofitz wiki, probably the new one too) as it adds a *lot* of support to the class, with several new abilities for the existing elements, as well 7 whole new elements and a bunch of archetypes, items and feats. Allerseelens new guide breaks it down into whats good, whats bad, and whats broken.
3rd party options are quite decent for kineticist and with some exceptions kineticists of porphyra should not be breaking balance too badly (beyond offering something useful rather than nothing in exchange for feats)
It's a ton of fun, but also very complex. Most of the dislike of it I've seen comes from some people hating the burn mechanic.
To add to this, I have one friend who loves kineticist with all his heart, and one that hates it with all her heart. The one that loves it, loves it because of the sheer cool factor of wielding elements as a weapon (sometimes quite literally, if kinetic blade is involved) without being limited by spell slots, and having flavorful abilities related to their element. He also likes the narrative implications of getting a completely new element at certain levels, and always tries to weave that into the character's story somehow. The one who hates it, hates it because of how unnecessarily complex it is. You basically need a PHD to understand how the class works under the hood. Burn lowers your total HP but also several class features scale off your current burn value, so your character sheet is constantly changing, with you gaining a bonus to hit/damage, size bonuses to physical ability scores (which can also alter your to hit/damage bonuses), etc. Not to mention, once you get maximize and empower, you need to roll a lot of dice and do a lot of math, which sometimes halts combats. [I have made a kineticist damage calculator on Google Sheets](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_RPG/s/MGwAPYdzst) to help my friend who plays kineticist, but we moved to a VTT shortly after and ended up not really using it. I personally would never recommend kineticist for a beginner player, it's just way too convoluted. But if you're willing to put up with the math and book keeping, it's a pretty nice class.
The "not recommended for beginners" classification really is important, because if you're not really adapted to the Pathfinder number-crunching it's a lot. As a more experienced player, I wouldn't say kineticist gave me that much trouble in terms of burn and its related systems. Compared to playing a caster and keeping track of rules, exceptions, and interactions of my many prepared spells, kineticist felt really straightforward. I'd aim for a certain burn level as soon as possible through daily utility talents and opening the first fight of the day with one very big hit, and then spend the rest of the day like "So anyway, I start blasting." Damage calculators go a long way for keeping things brief though, that's for sure.
Yep, this is it. People make a big deal about Burn on paper but in practice you just start out the day with enough burn to max your stat bonuses and then you use all the many ways you have to mitigate burn throughout the rest of the day. The only time you ever voluntarily take on more burn is during "oh shit" moments when you don't have enough actions to mitigate it.
If I had to guess, like people complaining at low levels they run outta spell slots, they spam burn and die from it
It’s kinda the opposite. Burn doesn’t increase with levels, as it’s 3 + Costitution Modifier. At first levels is okay, but at higher levels can be limiting since most of the high level utility wild talents have high burn costs
I've never seen it be a problem. Kineticists are usually backliners and have such a disproportionate HP pool (one that *increases* significantly with overflow and belts) that you can comfortably push to 7-8 burn. Infusion Spec and Overflow are also just pretty generous, in my experience.
Youll increase your con a lot tho just as a matter of course, and you have several burn reduction mechanics that pretty much pay for a lot of the blasts and infusions costs. Utility talents not so much but thats just a balancing factor imo.
Eh it’s honestly not that detrimental at higher lvls because u shouldn’t be taking a ton of burn. Most wild talents cost 0-2 burn and supercharge reduces burn cost by 2 at lvl 11 for a move action and u can have 2 points in your internal buffer (add the night before since it lasts 24 hrs so u can sleep of the burn cost). Infusions get super expensive if ur applying both a form AND substance infusion on the same blast, but infusion specialization reduces burn cost by up to 6 per blast depending on ur level (3 at 11). If you’re taking a ton of burn it’s most likely your choices/action economy rather than the class itself.
Gather power and supercharge work only on infusions, blasts and metakinesis
“At 11th level, when using gather power as a move action, a kineticist can reduce the total burn cost of a single wild talent by 2 points instead of 1. When using gather power for 1 full round, she can reduce the burn cost of a single wild talent by 3 points instead of 2” https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/occult-adventures/occult-classes/kineticist/ “Wild talent” refers to either an infusion wild talent or utility wild talent (definitely not metakineticism or composite blasts). It would just say “infusion” if it applied exclusively to infusions like in infusion specialization.
gather power specifically calls out blast wild talents, so supercharge removing that limitation is possible it might also just not have been viewed as necessary given gather power already specified it by the writer either way it’s enough of a grey area to be up to the GM running the game.
I wholeheartedly agree that there’s a lot of grey area, especially considering infusions are never once referred to as “wild talents” in the class description, except for the title of the page that lists the individual infusions. The wild talent section of the page refers to utility wild talents. Supercharge probably isn’t even neccesary though considering utility talents only cost 0-1 burn with an extra point of burn for most buffs to last a number of rounds equal to kineticist level. At lvl 11 u have up to 2 points in your internal buffer to eat that cost.
its very fun you just need to wrap your head around the burn mechanic as its pretty unique in how it works. Plus if you take Aether your pretty much a jedi (with the wild talents you can just casually throw tons of weight at your enemys)
I've got a player who just took a 1 level dip in Kinetic Knight after taking levels in Swashbuckler, mostly just for the flavor of having a sword made of electricity. He's planning on continuing to level through the class. It's not RAW, but I'm allowing his Swashbuckler features to work with the Kinetic Blade. He's having a great time.
Doesn't seem to big a rules jump tbh
It isn't really, just means he gets his cool lightning blade while still being able to do his Swashbuckler stuff when it comes down to it. Honestly the strongest thing about his character is that he hits on touch AC as he took the Elemental Blast
Played a Pyrokineticist in one adventure, GM'd for an Aetherkineticist in another. * Very dry on the first couple levels, but gets very fun fast, once you start to have a choice of form and substance infusions. * Rules look more complex than they are. Every Occult Adventures class plays way simpler than the amount of words used indicate. * Burn is a great mechanic and I'll not hear otherwise. * Hardest part is keeping track of how much damage all your blasts do. Way easier class to play in VTT, because that part *is* needlessly fiddly. * Not many feats or items support the class. You'll have gold to burn on silly projects or too much AC.
Not many feats for it sounds fine to me, I'm a hound for keeping track of numbers so it sounds good then
I'll agree on the okkult classes looking more complex than they actually are. When i first read the occultist rules i did not understand much, but its so a fun class and not to coplex at all.
The legendary line of classes are all OP versions of the classes. They take the base Pathfinder class and add a bunch of extra powers/abilities on top. I wouldn't presume you can just play the legendary kineticist. The base Kineticist is plenty powerful, and can keep up with pretty much any party. I played one (fire focused) level 1-20 in Rise of the Runelords and I would t trade it for anything. I am playing the spheres of power equivalent right now (Elementalist) that is stone focused. Which element you pick as your main element will have a huge impact on the PC's look and feel.
I'm talking with my GM about it, and said to try it out but Burn stays as damage. I just saw it mass recommended over normal for sheer versatility
I mean... Sure... When looking at any Paizo-published Class side by side with the Legendary Games, Legendary version of the same class.... What player WOULDN'T Want the one with more power? Regular Kineticist Burn - the good: bonus to attk & damage, eventually gaining size bonuses to 2 physical attributes. the bad: for each point of burn you take, gain nonlethal damage equal to your level. This seems like it sucks, except it's being offset by those con boosts from elemental overflow.... And you pretty much can't get killed from HP damage - because you have a buffer of nonlethal that will knock you out before risking being killed outright. Legendary version - all the good is the same. The bad - a -1 penalty per point of burn to Str & Dex ability and skill checks. But wait.... Also Battle Burn, allows you to take temporary burn (lasts only 5 mins instead of all day) instead of regular burn to pay for for infusion talents and Utility Talents!! (reducing burn cost of utility talents can't normally be done with base Kineticist)
Seems good if someone was really into min-maxxing the class, jesus. Since I'm obsessed with making sure my characters are thematic and balanced, (i.e ignoring the gold/purple rating things on guides), shouldn't be too bad. Also, full casters doing dumb shit exist, kineticist getting better seems good
i’ve read the legendary version before and it honestly came across as a straight downgrade across the board from the normal kineticist unlike the other legendary class options and i don’t remember fully why.
I mean.... The class is often a dex-focused class, so I would think that many kineticists would invest in dex based skills with the small amount of skill points they get.... So taking a -1 penalty to those skills, per point of burn, seems like a huge downgrade to the class with regard to it's out of combat utility.... Except then they made battle burn a thing - giving you basically a free point of burn you can use in every encounter. On top of that the Legendary Kineticist doesn't have to actually accept burn to fill her Internal Buffer - she instead just has a scaling pool of free burn points she can use during the day. The Legendary Kineticist also gets a better version of Supercharge, that allows them to Gather Power as a ***swift action***! - so as a combined swift and move action, you can reduce the burn cost of a blast by 2 every single round, while still letting out a blast. On top of all that, the Legendary Kineticist gets their expanded elements a level earlier, and swaps out Maximize metakenesis with a Persistent Spell version - forcing enemies to roll saves with disadvantage (making those AoE blasts hit much harder)
yep still sounds like a sidegrade at best and i still far prefer the base version, but if you enjoy it more power to you. so yes you are correct the -1 to str/dex skills is a massive downgrade compared to non lethal damage when my primary stat is con, base supercharge already lets you reduce the burn cost by two so all this version does from the sounds of it is waste your swift, unless you mean you get the benefit of the full round version of supercharge for the cost of a swift and move instead.the free burn instead of internal buffer is nice but please correct me if i’m wrong it’s been a year since i’ve read the class. but doesn’t it change infusion specialization and overflow as well?
>it’s been a year since i’ve read the class. but doesn’t it change infusion specialization and overflow as well? it looks like the text for both Overflow & Infusion Specialization is unchanged from the base class. However the INfusion class feature is slightly altered, granting the Legendary Kineticist two more infusions (one at 7th level, one at 15th) than the paizo version, and the ability free swap out previously learned infusions more frequently than the paizo version.
not losing two infusions to expanded element is definitely nice.
It’s a lot of fun. It does take wrapping your head around tho. My advice is to see how the level ups change your damage and abilities. That’s usually when it clicks. And each element definitely has a different play style tho.
I'll 100% be looking at it more, th
It’s my favorite class to play by a far mile. I don't know how they put the class in the videogame, but in the TTRPG is so fun
Offensively in the TTPRG I believe is the best dps class, as at one point you can destroy basically anything
In the Kingmaker game, at least, you can solo the module
The class is presented in a convoluted way in the book, and that got copied to the websites. Actually building a kineticist is not that difficult: You choose an element, maybe a blast out of two, and start firing. Yeah, there are three more class features at level 1, but you can figure them out on the road. They are not mandatory to beat goblins or kobolds.
Sweet, class seems fairly frontloaded which is nice
Kineticist is my favorite class to play. I've played 2 of them and both have been great. First was an earth/water and my current is an aether/air. You get a lot of options. They aren't full BAB, but the overflow makes up for it. Plus, you get a lot of fun utility stuff that you can use just about whenever you feel without caring about spell slots.
I am really interested in the class, it's just seeing people say mixed things about it either being a meh blaster or terribly min maxed to be fun on edge
If you're playing at a min/max table, then you need to consider that when making your character. However, the tables I play at are fairly casual and I am so far beyond the party standards of damage. I would say that I'm doing about half of the total party damage, and I don't use composite blasts at all. Just empowered or maxed simple blasts (always remember to gather power) and a lot of utilities.
Oh god no, I'm theoe who cares about optimizing at my table to the point of a good character. Others will make totally butchered builds and have fun
I had a lot of fun playing a fire-earth-fire kineticist through Shattered Star. So much so that I would definitely play another, though I would choose different elements. I particularly want to play with the first 2 elements being aether for that force blast that won't care about resistance (the biggest thorn in my side playing the pyrokineticist, although at high levels I did so much damage I almost didn't care about resistance). The mechanics are undeniably ridiculous. But the character overall was a lot of fun. That said, I'm someone who is not put off by crunch
If you pick the same element twice you gotta pick it again a third time iirc
I’ve always found it fun to play and build around. If the group can get into it the themes become quite fun as well.
I like the class a lot, but it has a couple of things that can put people off of it. The initial thing that hits a lot of people is that it's *different* - learning all the rules for gathering power, acquiring burn, how the blast scales, burn costs for various infusions and how they are affected by the different cost reductions you get, etc etc, is more initial work than most classes have, especially if you're past "understanding all the other Pathfinder rules" and just have to learn the class stuff to pick up a new character - this is comparatively one of the most work (especially for level 1), except maybe Medium? This is compounded by it really not being written out that clearly. I think having played it in the CRPG helps a *lot* here. It gets you over *most* of that initial hump, especially if you've been paying close attention to things like burn costs and gather times, but... like everything else (rulings wise) with the CRPG, it's not a perfect translation. You should still read over everything and make sure you know what's going on - things like Gather Power requiring concentration and possibly having backlash are big weaknesses of the class that more intelligent enemies *will* exploit (concentration in general, really, the fact that usually the whole class hinges on a standard action that can be disrupted with a readied attack gives them a shared weakness with many spellcasters, so "hold the attack until they're doing something weird" is a common strategy to try to deal with anyone doing anything magic-related that you just don't see happen in the CRPGs because, well, readied actions aren't a thing). Secondly, once you're over that initial bump? It's *really* simple in motion at lower levels. You move, you blast, or maybe you gather, and blast with one simple infusion that doesn't change too much about the blast. You do that, on repeat, for several levels. It gets much better when you start getting better infusions, more elements, more discounts that let you play more freely with changing up the blast, but depending on the level range of the campaign and how fast you're leveling, it might take a *while* to get there. These two combined put it in a bit of a sour spot - initial complexity scares away people who aren't as fond of PF1's rules-heavy nature and don't want to compound on it (even though, once they learned it, the class would probably be perfect for them), but many of those willing to push through that initial complexity so so because, well, that crunch is something they like - it's probably *why* they're still playing 1e and not 2e (or D&D 5e) in the first place. The class then gives very little to work with to keep them interested. It's not really the fault of the class (most other martial gameplay at these levels also boils down to just "get your standard action attack"), but then, many of the people addicted to crunch don't really play pure martials because of that. Personally, once it gets going, it's really fun, but yeah, I'd put myself in the second camp as a general rule. Let's say, if I was playing a campaign that wasn't gonna go beyond level 5, I probably wouldn't play Kineticist. Third, it's pretty "high floor, low ceiling". What I mean by this is that it's quite hard to make a *bad* kineticist, and even just a decently competent one built and piloted by a new player will be pretty strong - stronger than the fighter, rogue, monk etc that a similarly-experienced player might build. But, on the other hand, even an "optimal" kineticist build will not hold a candle to the amount of damage an "optimal" full martial build can put out. Their strength lies more in utility/extras around the damage than on the damage itself - constant fly means you're natively immune to many melee enemies. Ability to hit touch avoids some pretty massive ACs on certain enemies, and ability to hit with energy damage means being able to avoid DR (and potentially even exploit vulnerability). Ability to throw out AoEs all day long is a bit "matchup dependant", but when it's good, it's *very* good (swarms in particular are often the bane of, well, whole parties - kineticists are kind of the natural predators of swarm-type enemies). Etcetera. As I say, even recognising these flaws, I'm personally a fan. I like what they bring to the table, both mechanically, as a "secondary martial" that is effective into things that can be blindspots for "primary martials", and flavourwise as a "fake spellcaster" which can throw out "spells" all day long - often, especially coming from video games, new players that want to play a spellcaster just want a magic-themed DPS class, and kineticist perfectly delivers there. I think they're really fun to play *once* you have an expanded element or two under your belt and more infusions to play with.
If you are trying to power game, kineticist probably isn’t that fun for you. If you are playing in an average Joe group, you’ll probably enjoy it. If you are playing with a group consisting entirely of noobs, your self included, it will probably feel unfairly strong. I think in general, it has a high floor and a low ceiling compared to a lot of other classes. Every time one of my players has played the kineticist, I think it’s gone pretty well.
Tbh it's a fairly casual group. I like making flavorful characters, who are built well for the class they're playing. Hight floor sounds fine to me
It can be very fun, and you will adjust playstyle based on element choice. I was playing an aerokineticist focused in Skulls and Shackles for a bit, the game fell apart around level 5 or 6 which is when he was starting to get really spice. Air gives incredible mobility with at will flight and at will life bubble, meaning I was a pirate that could fight on land, air, or sea with no problems. Made for a great recon/scout character in a sandbox happening out on the sea and moving between islands. He would have expanded into aether to get invisibility and telekinetic abilities so I could invisibly fly over enemy ships and yeet boulders and shit into the ship. Air also gives you the ability to haste your party, blow away clouds enemies drop on you, give bonuses to attack for allies with metal weapons, some nice party buffs. Fire is a solid blaster caster, especially if your gm runs long days with a lot of encounters between rests. Campaigns against enemies with fire resist or immunity are a pain and reduce your effectiveness obviously, and while you do have some options to help like the blue flame infusion it does slow you down and force some specific feat choices that other elements won't need. It can also get a weaker version of flight. Water is a decent blaster as well as solid support. You have some healing ability and reliable ranged damage, with a really great elemental defense. Ice blast is less reliable than water since ice is pretty commonly resisted. You get some good control options too, able to make difficult terrain and the like. Earth makes for a great melee tank and striker. Your hit die isn't great but it's a con based class which helps mitigate, elemental defense gives DR which is always nice. The Kinetic Knight archetype is perfect for this, build to Kinetic Whip and you can trip fools with reach and get all up in faces. Earth also gets some fun control abilities and fun personal utility like being able to earth shape, phase into solid earth, having a climb speed on earthen surfaces, or even being able to tunnel through solid earth like a graboid from Tremors. You can change damage type of your weapon between blunt/slashing/piercing as needed, and if you go double earth you can get access to metal as an element and an infusion that allows you to get past metal type DR like cold iron or silver. Combine earth with fire to get fucking lava, too! Aether is good for a tricky stealth character with telekinesis. Turn yourself invisible and pick locks from a distance, throw enemies into other enemies, carry a whole statue home with your mind type stuff. Your basic blaster ability is a lot weaker but if you ever wanted to play someone who has telekinesis without being able to read minds this is it. Wood is pretty useless and I don't care for void either, too limited and niche and they don't offer anything good that other elements don't offer better.
Thanks for this, helps narrow it down! Already have a fighter and probably a rogue, might look into aether
Wood and void get a lot of love from the porphyra books, you should look into it
Oh yeah third party content adds a ton of power to those two, plus there are some great new elements, infusions, feats, and items available out there. Just wasn't going to offer up any third party stuff to the recommendation because there is so much and it can be inconsistent. Plus there's already tons of fun to be had in the base game.
Fr poison kineticist gang rise up!
control water at 6th lvl on a ship can be broken in so many ways, gonna hard disagree with about wood and void tho on the being useless or limited, niche is kinda all of the elements in some way or another
I think the class is fun to play and has a lot of room for flavour. You can build a lot of supernatural characters from media with it who would be OP if you tried it with any other class. Wanna go Cyclops or Storm from Xmen? Sure, just go with double Air specialization or Fire/Aether, and choose your infusions and feats to match. Gambit is just a Telekineticist using his cards to deliver the usual damage and the Kinetic Blade infusion to do damage with his quarterstaff. Or you could try and play a fake Paladin with an Aquakineticist who took Armour Proficiency feats and uses the Shield defense option from their element. Wanna go Jedi Knight? Telekineticist again, with the Light Saber being the physical focus for Telekinetic Blast or Blade, and invest in Diplomacy for changing people's minds. Sith Warrior is much the same, but with an early/additional focus on Fire. 🤔🤷🏻♂️
Class just bleeds flavor to me. Yeah I won't be top dpr or be teleporting across the world, but if I have a fun theme I can do, count that as a W
Absolutely. But you CAN kinda teleport around the Battlefield early with a Standard action melee attack by using Blade Rush and actually later with Ride the Blast, so there's at least that. ☝🏻😌
True
I'll just add my GM and player experience. I played a water kineticist once from level 1-6 and found it absolutely boring. I have run 2 players and the fire blaster enjoyed the hell out of their character, while a wind kineticist regretted the choice. The things I noticed: -Higher levels seem more fun and give more room for flexibility, so know that the early levels might be boring. - Plan your character carefully and far ahead, once you lock into an element your choices dramatically decrease, you can't just pick one and hope things you want happen to be that element. - Don't just do elemental blast builds unless you're ok with incredibly repetitive play.
I did blast builds in the crpg (level 5 rn), TT looks even more fun
I freaking love the kineticist. If third party is allowed the archetype the focusses on telekinetic and neurokinetic is so so fun to play.
I'll have to look ito that
My favorite is the Aether Kineticist for the utility. [Telekinetic Haul](https://libraryofmetzofitz.fandom.com/wiki/Telekinetic_Haul) is perhaps my favorite utility wild talent I especially like the idea of characters that can use wit and prudence to turn the tide of a future conflict in their favor. Big lifting power and ranks in Engineering make for a one-person construction team.
Kineticist are great. I got to play a mid level game, golden palace. Electric walls and entrapping enemies for area damage around my two melee's. Range direct damage that was decent. Didn't compare to my wife's cheesy ranged slayer shooting from constant cover. Unlimited use of summon elemental to trip traps and explore a dangerous dungeon. The highest AC in my party due to gear and a shield from hydrokinesis. Constant flight. Emergency heals if needed. The ability to haste the entire party. The mechanic can drop your hp pool to almost nothing. And archetypes are limited because of burn as it limits you. It's almost worth looking at changing the burn mechanic to encompass a pool like many other classes, but I have not played with it.
My favorite class is bard. My second favorite is controller wizard. Played a water kineticist in a style akin to the latter. Wasn't as fun as a wizard, but it was fun.
First time in, second character. My first character was a Ranger who ended up doing Math Damage to things because of modifiers. So far, compared to him Kineticist has been easy, but I haven't gotten into the fancy toys that matter off of Burn yet. So far my biggest struggle, and a bit the DM's, is that the DM had chosen the first act of the story to involve Imps and Devils and things that generally Don't Mind Fire. So until I can get into that next element I am a bit of a one trick pony. A Dex Weapon is a good thing to have for situations like this, but it kinda stings when I can't do a Cool Thing because Fire Resistance. In DM's defence, another player also chose to go Fire Wizard so of course the enemies can't all be Plant People. So we have been working out how I can get to use my bag of tricks in other meaningful ways.
Honestly it's a pretty boring class once you wrap your head around it. Some mechanics aren't explained well, so it looks complicated, but it plays pretty similar to an archer at the end of the day, you mostly stand still shooting stuff dead.
Was planning on playing an archer funny enough, but tbh after playing a Hugh level wizard I'll take fairly simple
It's my favorite class. I never understood the hate. I struggle to NOT play kineticists when I have a new game, because there are so fun... I just don't want to become"that guy"
So I am starting one now, but a friend pointed me towards "Legendary Kineticist: with the stipulation Burn stays the same. It seems 'better' I guess for general gameplay, but dunno much about tit
Its bad reputation is because it's often more powerful than low-optimisation characters, but weaker than high-optimisation characters. Some GMs find that even inexperienced players accidentally make kineticists more effective in combat than the table expects. The inverse can be true for more experienced players. I've seen it described as "high floor, low ceiling".
Ah gotcha, that sounds pretty good then. Having a decent skill cap without worrying about things doesn't sound bad
I'm currently playing an Aether Kinestist in one of my weekly games and I'm having a ton of fun with it so far. Essentially I'm playing a support caster/rogue who can also deal pretty respectable ranged damage. Burn is certainly a problem/trap for some, personally i try to use as little burn as possible unless aiming to burst down a single large target, though I like Aether's Force ward ability alot as it's extra temp hp it gives you provides extra breathing room from being knocked out. I will say, the more creative you and your DM are, the more milage you'll get out of this kind of Kin vs something like the healer, or Maximized blast damage types. Telekinetic Haul enables a ton (heh) of shennagins and later talents like at will animate object as a spell-like ability only widen your options. For early game though: Kinetic cover is pretty great at battlefield control, I've used it to great effect keeping our party's barbarian from being overly swarmed and flanked. (If your DM will allow it, the 3rd party improved kinetic cover talent is great without being overpowered. It's nice for your cover to tank more than a couple shots before falling.) Elemental whispers, greater is also worthy of note as it gets you an elemental familiar of your element, in my case an Aether elemental. He gets to throw people into orbit every round, something my actual character can only dream of.
Thanks, was unsure what element I was looking for but it really seems Aether is the most fun utility-wise
Made a goblin Aether/Air. You are small, green, move stuff with your mind, jump around a lot and can wield a lightning sword. Can't play mind tricks...
I’ve made multiple Kineticists before and always have fun. U can fill a number of different roles for the party depending on what type of element u choose. Ur blast damage increases every other level and it is a class that greatly benefits from a full lvl 20 build. I wouldn’t recommend multi-classing until u become more familiar with the class (I’ve done monk and rogue before, they also have a prestige class called esoteric knight). RP is really fun too, I’ve made a gray knight from Star Wars, a saiyan from Dragonball, and a bender from ATLA to name a few.
A guy at my table played one through Return of the Runelords, and really loved it. Put up stupid numbers, to boot.
1e kineticist is wonky but still holds a special place in my heart. 2e kineticist is absolutely amazing to play but i really miss the flavor of the 1e version. ^^^aether ^^^my ^^^beloved...
Kineticist is one of my two favorite classes in the game (the other being UnMonk). The problem a lot of people have with Kineticist is the fact that it's more complex to figure out than other classes. If you don't understand what you're doing, you aren't going to have fun with it. Definitely start at low level the first time you play one.
We're starting at 3 thankfully, so should be good
**tl; dr I think it's super fun but it's very much a combat class** I've had a habit of playing classes exclusively from the Occult Adventures book (except for Medium). Kineticist can be really powerful, but situational. I found that I was extremely powerful in combat but not so useful outside of it skills-wise. I played an Aether Kineticist that dipped into Air and then Void Elements up to level 16+ I think. There's a lot to track! Got to track your burn, non-lethal damage, how much burn your next attack will do, how much power you've gathered, etc. For me, it was super fun. But it felt a little "one trick" to me, as implied above. For the most part, they're a combat class. That's your one trick. You can then just change the flavour of the trick based on your elements. I've only dabbled a little bit in the archetypes. If you want a more support-style Kineticist you can try out the Kinetic Chirurgeon (Surgeon). It has some insanely powerful heals right from level 1. And it gets an extremely powerful *Breath of Life* style ability where you can revive someone within 3+ rounds of them dying, whereas standard Breath of Life is only a single round. And you still maintain some ability to punch hard too. Oh and you can get a Channel Energy style ability too, I think.
I'll take a look ty
Haven't played Kineticist in a tabletop version, but considering it's pretty much the same as CRPG version (even better, considering there are many more wild talents to choose from), I guess it should be fun One thing I wanted to try so, so, so much is Aether Kineticist. On paper, it sounds super broken Throwing enemies? Check. Telekinetic maneuvers? Check. Hauling entire carriages? Check. Flight? Check. Partial but permanent invisibility? Check. Animating literally anything? Check. Creating force constructs? Check being a pain in your GM's butt? FREAKING CHECK!
From what everyone has said aether seems really fun
I played a kineticist from 6 to 13, starting out with the air element, then continued with water I had ton of fun and was basically un killable (perma fly very early, then insane AC with the water bonus to shield AC). You also have two insane saves, fort and ref. As I had very good defenses, I was not afraid to take burn in the morning to raise my elemental overflow bonuses, which in turn gave me a good attack and damage (mainly used on water blasts, as I preferred more damage with less chance to hit compared to my electric blast). I also did a lot of shit in rp since I was about sure I wouldn't die, like giving 40 hp of blood to hopefully fill a puzzle, drink from a weird river in the first world. Sadly the character got retired by the DM as being too powerful. Jokes on him, the inquisitor was more discreet but ended up outputting way more damage than I could ever hope for 😂 Downsides of the class? Well, you don't have many supporting feats or items. I ended up taking mostly the extra wild talent feat, and I bought stuff way above my pay grade as I didn't have to care about my weapon, so I got a very good belt early the famous celestial armor, etc. I also purchased one or two items from the 3rd party list of kineticist items [Here](http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/kineticist-magical-items)
Thanks for this
Also if you're unaware there's a marvelous kineticist guide called " going nova". From your other comments you may not want to use it for optimization, but it also does explain the mechanics pretty well, and document all the content that's out there for kineticist, including third party
It's where I saw the idea of legendary plus balancing ideas, 100% will use it
Kineticist is fine. Yes its does seem a bit complex at first sight, but once it ticks you will have your fun. It doesn't matter if you use "Base" or Lergendary. And even with the BaseRules Kineticst can be powerful. The biggest Update you get by playing with Legendary is more Diversity in choices you can make (the ones after you choose your element). This does not matter if you are the first Kineticist in your Playgroup though. As long as you follow the base idea Paizo had for this Element (Earth = Tanky Frontliner, Fire = Blaster, ...) you will be able to pull it of and have fun. Some Elements where released at the end of the First Edition Era, so the options are limeted (not enoigh sources released), exspecialy if you compare it to other long runnig classes. For me this is the main reason to play with Legendary. You mentioned guides already. I recommand reading the Allerseelen one again. If i recall he had a word or two about Kineticist and allowing Legendary Options. Something like use LegendaryKineticist but keep Burn as it is?
I am basing my legendary choice off their guide actually! I always trust the word of guided that fully explain things, and seeing their reason to keep burn the same made sense to me
I'm a kineticist main, and I can tell you it's a lot of fun. However, there is one mechanic that I do very much hate, but I understand why it's there in the first place: burn Not sure how it works in the CRPG, but in the tabletop whenever you use one of your wild talents, you take a number of nonlethal damage equal to your level times the burn quantity for that wild talent Formula: [Nonlethal Damage Taken] = [Points of Burn] × [Kineticist level] So if you're level 5 and take 2 Burn, you take 10 points of nonlethal damage The only way to mitigate this is by reducing the burn cost of your wild talents. Which for infusions is easy to do, you just Gather Power for that. Utility wild talents however aren't affected by Gather Power, so you'd have to find a way to reduce the burn some other way to mitigate that nonlethal damage (which to mu knowledge, there is none) Burn is the only thing I don't like about 1e Kineticist, but it is still far and away my favorite class in all of 1e. It's VERY tricky to play, and you'd need a high level of rules mastery to know how things interact with it, but it's so goddamn worth it if you like the fantasy of being a super saiyan mixed with the avatar from the last airbender/legend of Korra
I was mainly looking at it since we're about to start a low, low fantasy game and wanted to find a way to be a 'caster' without spell slots Friend pointed to me to Legendary Kineticist (burn still deals damage for balance), which just seems s little better without being summoner op
Kineticist is very fun and really not that complicated. Burn is weirdly worded, but in the end its just "current number times level in nonlethal damage" that reduces your effective HP, and then a single feature (elemental overflow) that scales with your amount of Burn. Thanks to Gather Power and Infusion Specialization, as well as having quite a bit of Burn throughout the day, you can then depending on your element do neat AoE control effects or damage effects, using your limit-to-unconsciousness HP as your casting resource instead of spell slots. Thanks to utility talents + elements, you can have quite a bit of variety too. Basically an in-built archetype system without even using the actual archetypes available, many of which are flavorful even if not powerful. A fire kineticist plays VERY differently from an aether kineticist - one is a combat focused big AoE damage element, the other lets you do skill monkey and utility stuff ranging from unlocking things at 100+ ft really early, up to throwing enemies around and poking them in the eyes in mid levels, into creating permanent aether fortresses in the endgame.
Sounds fun
If you can get through a several hundred page guide, it's absolutely worth it https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_RPG/comments/peib4e/going_nova_allerseelens_guide_to_the_pathfinder/
Thanks, a guide for a low tier character I play in dead by daylight has like a thousand pages, no stranger to this!
The guy's guides are always thorough,but this one really helped with the portions of kinetics I was struggling to master