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Spotlight of Development: Kineticists and their awesome powers
As you all may know, our new DLC “The Wildcards” brings in a new class – a kineticist. We decided to tell you more about the role of this class on Golarion, its strong sides, the ways it can develop and what new experience kineticists would bring in the gaming process.
Kineticists on the Golarion
Masters of primordial power who assail foes with the elements or raw force, kineticists generally teach themselves to direct the barely controlled occult forces channeled into their bodies. Their skills are manifestations of the Elemental Planes filtered through the conduit of the Ethereal Plane. The broad range of their abilities makes kineticists versatile members of any adventuring party by allowing this class to operate both as a ranged combatant or a front-line enforcer.
While people from any culture on Golarion can manifest the power of a kineticist, cultures with extant ties to the elements are generally more understanding and welcoming of a kineticist’s power. In Ancient Osirion, kineticists served alongside the pharaohs of old and commanded great respect from their peers. The Houses of Perfection in Jalmeray offer training and mentorship to kineticists that respect the traditions of these monastic orders, honing body and mind into singular instruments capable of fantastic supernatural feats. In Irrisen, kineticists with the power to manipulate water and ice are trained alongside winter witches to serve as agents of the Jadwiga, while kineticists who can manipulate fire are often seen as threats to be stamped out.
Kineticists are rare enough that most people mistake them for monks, sorcerers, or members of similar classes. In the Inner Sea region, only people from Jalmeray or a major city like Absalom are likely to even recognize a kineticist.
Though kineticists use the transitive Ethereal Plane as a conduit, most of their element-based abilities ultimately flow from the Elemental Planes, allowing them to create huge amounts of water or stone seemingly from nothing. Kineticists often awaken to their kinetic abilities during a violent or traumatic experience, releasing their power involuntarily. As kinetic power is seldom inherited, kineticists are rarely able to find mentors to guide them, so they must delve into these mysteries on their own to learn to control their gifts. Most kineticists specialize in one of the elements: air (aerokinesis and aerokineticists), water (hydrokinesis and hydrokineticists), earth (geokinesis and geokineticists), fire (pyrokinesis and pyrokineticists).
Kineticist’s abilities
Why did we choose the kineticist as the new class for our first major DLC? There were multiple reasons. For one, we also had to consider the new companion introduced in the DLC. We wanted them to be a ranged damage dealer, since right now there are not enough companions that can fill this role in the party. At least, not enough to allow the party to completely divert from the current combat paradigms. We wanted the class to differ from others significantly and to provide a new experience regardless of what the player had already tried. We also wanted someone suitable to be a blaster, yet did not want to introduce another spellcaster.
The kineticist is the only class that seems to cover that niche in Pathfinder, unique in its ability to unleash elemental devastation without worrying about the limitations of spells per day. The magus, a class that was added thanks to your generous support of our Kickstarter campaign, was meant for people who, when asked whether they want to use spells or weapons, wanted both. The kineticist is for those who want both and neither.
While kineticists do not have access to hundreds upon hundreds of spells, they have their fair share of options. In combat, they use Kinetic Blasts, and on level-up they gain infusions and wild talents. While wild talents are just common passive and active abilities, infusions are a different beast altogether: they allow the kineticist to drastically change the effects of his or her blasts. The standard Kinetic Blast is a single-target attack - ranged touch for fire, electricity and cold, and normal ranged attack for air, water and earth. However, form infusions can instead shape it into a line, an explosion around the kineticist or even into a zone that deals damage over time. The other type, substance infusions, can add additional effects to the blast. For example, the Burning Infusion sets enemies on fire, and the Bowling Infusion knocks down all enemies in the blast area (using a common Trip combat maneuver, with all the benefits from all the feats that influence it).
As with many other classes, kineticist archetypes allow you to use your class powers in a different way. Kinetic Knights bring the power of the elements into melee using the Kinetic Blade form infusion that lowers range to melee, but allows the user to perform a full attack action with it. They abandon all other form infusions, but gain the ability to use shields (normal kineticists require both hands being free). Since the attack is melee, this means it now relies on Strength instead of Dexterity for hit chances (at least without the Weapon Finesse feat), making it possible to focus on heavy armor and high Strength. Substance infusions still affect this blade, and energy blades are still touch attacks, so Kinetic Knights still have a lot of exciting options. The other two archetypes, Psychokineticist, and Dark Elementalist, instead replace the Constitution in all class mechanics with Wisdom and Intelligence, respectively. Psychokineticists concentrate on increasing their mental stats, and Dark Elementalists have more skill points thanks to high Intelligence and can restore their resources by using the souls of slain enemies.
Presenting the player with multiple choices, from different primary elements at level one to an impressive range of infusions and talents later on, kineticists are surprisingly flexible and can fit almost any role. For example, the most common fire kineticist build concentrates on burning enemies down as fast as possible with ranged touch attacks and area damaging infusions, such as the aforementioned Burning Infusion or the Pure Flame Infusion that allows fire blasts to ignore the spell resistance of the target. However, there are also support builds: for example, a water kineticist can take the Kinetic Healer talent which will allow them to heal the wounds of their companions, and use Chiling Infusion to stagger enemies. Crowd control is prevalent among substance infusions – the Flash Infusion blinds enemies with fire, the Entangling Infusion lowers enemies’ mobility with earth, and the Grappling Infusion can turn your area effects into a trap just as deadly as a Web spell, but with additional damage from the blast. There are even tank builds for the kineticist, thanks to the primary stats of the class being dexterity and constitution.
As kineticists level up, they gain access to additional elements that widen their arsenal of powers, such as composite blasts that mix the elements into a deadly elemental barrage or metakinesis that allows to apply metamagic feats to blasts. They can either Gather Power, spending time and actions to use powerful blasts completely safely, or use their own bodies to fuel blasts and accumulate Burn. Burn is a special type of resource that allows kineticists to go beyond ordinary limits of their abilities, but presents risks and rewards of its own – every point of burn accumulated reduces the amount of damage that a kineticist can take before falling unconscious, but also increases the power of their blasts.
Usually, a kineticist will start combat by throwing one or two abilities into the mix, and then switch to auto-casting their blast, customizing it for this specific situation. For example, they can start a fight by throwing a Blizzard Blast with Cloud Infusion and Chilling Infusion into a crowd of enemies, slowing them down. Then they can switch to auto-casting Water Blast with Spray Infusion and Pushing Infusion, to push all enemies in a 30 feet cone back into the blizzard cloud. Finally, switching to the single target Blizzard Blast with Maximize Metakinesis to finish the enemies left with maximum efficiency.
All in all, the kineticist class seems a perfect fit for the current state of the game, and the customizable auto-cast is a neat addition to the combat management of a 6-piece party. It requires less attention than spellcasters and more attention than just changing focus targets for melee and ranged attacks: not only can you choose whom you are attacking, but also how.
We hope that you will have fun playing a kineticist, be it your own character or a companion.
Be sure to give it a spin!
