Pathfinder Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition - now with turn-based combat

[Desiderius]

The truly broken part of kineticists is staying outside an enemy's sight range, doing High Gather Power, and summing one or two empowered/maximized AoEs that you then lead enemies into.

Also it's Low (move action), Medium (full round), High (full round + move action of next round), Since you then actually need to attack I don't think anything other than low gather power is suitable for combat. I'm not sure how it all converts into RT combat times though.

Since Kinetic Blast doesn't get iteratives (Kinetic Blade does!) the typical play pattern is to leave Gather Low toggled on since it's a Move Action and Blast is a Standard. The cost of the Blast will automatically update depending on what Infusions you have toggled on (will go up if cost net of specialization > 0) and which Gather you're using (cost will go down). Can't do that if you're moving so you either use Extended Range or Move + cheaper Blast (or spend Burn), then Gather once in position. Easier to mix and match in TB.

Nothing stopping you on a tough fight from pulling a boss with rest of your team while Kinnie starts a High Gather then lets loose the following round with a big Composite Blast vs Touch. Did this on Bald Hilltop Unfair.

 

[Average Manatee]

Low gather power will cover the 1 burn of extended range at early levels and at later levels you get 2 (or more? Can't recall) burn reduction from low gather power so there's never really a reason to not just use extended range if you are out of range. Unless you don't have LoS or need to move to avoid getting hit by something, of course.

Nothing stopping you on a tough fight from pulling a boss with rest of your team while Kinnie starts a High Gather then lets loose the following round with a big Composite Blast vs Touch.

Aside from it being a bit cheesy and overpowered. Not as bad as summoning multiple persistent AoEs but still a bit excessive frontloading of damage.

 

[Cael]

Thing with Kineticist is that they only get 1 shot per round unless they want to accept burn from that meta-blast that quicken a single blast. It is not ideal when alchemist can go nova with multiple bombs per round.

 

[Desiderius]

It’s neither cheesy nor overpowered. Kineticist gives up a lot - ranged iteratives, weapons, most feats (in CotW Shatter is implemented as in PnP so does nothing for Blast, which severely nerfs Kanerah’s Bonus Feats from Fire) and on this case also gives up a full turn.

If you want her Composite Blast to hit Touch that also means giving up Physical Second Element. And even there you’ve got no guarantee to hit on Unfair since you’re 3/4 with no Shatter or to hit abilities (and in CotW you’ve got Cover to manage).

I’ve found that most people worried about cheese are significantly underperforming people simply playing the game as designed and learning how to manage the various trade-offs.

It’s a great ruleset.

 

[Average Manatee]

Thing with Kineticist is that they only get 1 shot per round unless they want to accept burn from that meta-blast that quicken a single blast. It is not ideal when alchemist can go nova with multiple bombs per round.

Alchemist has limited bombs per day, while burn is the kineticist's only per-day limiting factor. It makes sense that you'd have to use burn to be comparable. Although I think empowering and maximizing your blasts is a better tradeoff. There's also the fact that alchemist does have some problems actually hitting with all those bombs against tougher enemies.

It’s neither cheesy nor overpowered. Kineticist goves up a lot - ranged iteratives, weapons, most feats (in CotW Shatter is implemented as in PnP so does nothing for Blast, which severely nerfs Kanerah’s Bonus Feats from Fire) and on this case also gives up a full turn.

That's nice and all but Blue Flame empowered + maximized does 244 damage for me by the end game, can't miss and will beat any spell resistance and practically ignores any damage reduction since its all in one shot. Can't think of anything else that really meets all these parameters. Really powerful ranged sneak attack builds can open round one with similar damage but that's about it, and they don't hit touch AC (well they do with spell rays but then you give up iteratives too).

Of course even this pales in comparison to the true stupidity of empowered/maximizing a wall, a cloud, and a deadly earth first, THEN pulling the enemy into all these AoEs with an empowered maximized Eruption. That's like... 500 damage even if they save, along with difficult terrain and multiple potential tough CMB checks vs. trip. And by the way you can have the kineticist sisters swap and do another round of AoEs before pulling the enemy if you want.

If you want her Composite Blast to hit Touch that also means giving up Physical Second Element. And even there you’ve got no guarantee to hit on Unfair since you’re 3/4 with no Shatter or to hit abilities (and in CotW you’ve got Cover to manage).

Just checked and my Kanerah ended with an AB of 35 with only +4 morale buff and haste. Aside from literally lantern king you're gonna be hitting practically everything on touch. This is also without any burn adding stats.

I’ve found that most people worried about cheese are significantly underperforming people simply playing the game as designed and learning how to manage the various trade-offs.

There's no tradeoff to spending time drawing power before a fight. It's a free damage buff. You could argue that its akin to pre-buffing but buff spells/potions/etc are limited use normally. Can't think of another class that can get an automatic triple damage buff on their first round, which is what empowering and maximizing does.

 

[Cael]

Thing with Kineticist is that they only get 1 shot per round unless they want to accept burn from that meta-blast that quicken a single blast. It is not ideal when alchemist can go nova with multiple bombs per round.

Alchemist has limited bombs per day, while burn is the kineticist's only per-day limiting factor. It makes sense that you'd have to use burn to be comparable. Although I think empowering and maximizing your blasts is a better tradeoff. There's also the fact that alchemist does have some problems actually hitting with all those bombs against tougher enemies.

Both Alchemist and Kineticist use ranged touch. How can one be easier than the other?

 

[Desiderius]

by the end game

The downfall of the theorycrafter.

 

[Desiderius]

Thing with Kineticist is that they only get 1 shot per round unless they want to accept burn from that meta-blast that quicken a single blast. It is not ideal when alchemist can go nova with multiple bombs per round.

Alchemist has limited bombs per day, while burn is the kineticist's only per-day limiting factor. It makes sense that you'd have to use burn to be comparable. Although I think empowering and maximizing your blasts is a better tradeoff. There's also the fact that alchemist does have some problems actually hitting with all those bombs against tougher enemies.

Both Alchemist and Kineticist use ranged touch. How can one be easier than the other?

And Alchemist gets way more specific support in P:K (although Companion quest for the twins does give you a decent headpiece), starting with the jacket from the Rat Cave (that they give you twice in Depths in case you missed it) that gives you... +2 to hit with Bombs.

CotW does give you Precise Blast Feat which would have been nice when I was using Eruption a lot on vanilla Kanerah Unfair midgame. Don't have to worry about hitting with that. Only thing cheesy about Kinnie in Vanilla P:K was Whirlwind mis-implemented with no burn (or maybe that was Supercharge). IIRC that was fixed?

I just never took Fast Bombs (which kept Alch on par with Kinnie no iteratives) and never ran out. Probably makes more sense just to make your Alch a decent archer then crank up the Fast Bombs on bosses.

 

[Average Manatee]

Both Alchemist and Kineticist use ranged touch. How can one be easier than the other?

Because the kineticist only has to hit once at their highest AB to deliver their blast which can potentially be maximized/empowered (past a certain point empowering is free, which is 1.5x damage, and I think by the end game maximizing is free with low draw power for 2x damage). Alchemist has to hit once at AB, again at AB -5, again at AB -10, etc. You're probably gonna hit the first two but past that it's getting sketchy. Let's say Alchemist hits 3 bombs per round average against the kind of bosses you'd go loco on (pulled out of my ass, I know) while kineticist requires 1 burn per round to deliver an empowered maximized blast (3x damage). Seems pretty comparable. Maybe alchemist hits 4 bombs per round, but then Alchemist doesn't have the awesome AoEs and stuff like trip attacks on their blasts.

by the end game

The downfall of the theorycrafter.

Kineticist damage ramp is linear with level so its entirely comparable throughout the rest of the game.

Also I just checked and Kalikke has 45 AB with kinetic overflow for me. Could probably be optimized a bit more (I don't even have equipment on several of her slots), especially with a PC kineticist. I bet at least 50 AB is possible. You're gonna hit every touch attack and almost every regular AC.

 

[Cael]

Both Alchemist and Kineticist use ranged touch. How can one be easier than the other?

Because the kineticist only has to hit once at their highest AB to deliver their blast which can potentially be maximized/empowered (past a certain point empowering is free, which is 1.5x damage, and I think by the end game maximizing is free with low draw power for 2x damage). Alchemist has to hit once at AB, again at AB -5, again at AB -10, etc. You're probably gonna hit the first two but past that it's getting sketchy. Let's say Alchemist hits 3 bombs per round average against the kind of bosses you'd go loco on (pulled out of my ass, I know) while kineticist requires 1 burn per round to deliver an empowered maximized blast (3x damage). Seems pretty comparable. Maybe alchemist hits 4 bombs per round, but then Alchemist doesn't have the awesome AoEs and stuff like trip attacks on their blasts.

I am not seeing how you can get empowered maximise for only 1 burn a round. Are you sure we are playing the same game here?

 

[Desiderius]

Alchemist has to hit once at AB, again at AB -5, again at AB -10, etc.

Lol, no. The Alchemist hits once with some of the highest DCs in the game on save or die debuffs. I never even took Fast Bombs.

Again you run to the endgame. Weren't you the one complaining about Kinnie being garbage until level 13 or was that RunningWolf ? Kinnie gets solid damage but no guarantee to hit. Overflow helps but it takes Kaherah a while to get her overflow and she doesn't get the full benefit. And if you want to stay touch you're giving up on Air (Plasma) which gives you Celerity at 7 or Earth (Magma) with the Deadly or whatever (never tried it). Doubling up on first two elements severly reduces the breadth of Wild Talents/Bonus Feats and Blasts available and you even have to worry about SR IIRC, not to mention a good bit lower damage.

 

[Average Manatee]

Alchemist has to hit once at AB, again at AB -5, again at AB -10, etc.

Lol, no. The Alchemist hits once with some of the highest DCs in the game on save or die debuffs. I never even took Fast Bombs.

Cael was talking about fast bombs, so I responded on fast bombs.

Again you run to the endgame. Weren't you the one complaining about Kinnie being garbage until level 13 or was that @RunningWolf ? Kinnie gets solid damage but no guarantee to hit. Overflow helps but it takes Kaherah a while to get her overflow and she doesn't get the full benefit. And if you want to stay touch you're giving up on Air (Plasma) which gives you Celerity at 7 or Earth (Magma) with the Deadly or whatever (never tried it). Doubling up on first two elements severaly reduces the breadth of Wild Talents and Blasts available and you even have to worry about SR IIRC, not to mention a good bit lower damage.

Just because tradeoffs exist in character creation doesn't mean that broken things inherent to the class like gathering power pre-combat don't exist. I'd say kineticist is fine early levels, a bit overpowered once you get stuff like Deadly Earth, vastly overpowered with virtually no equal if you are fully abusing pre-battle casting to the maximum extent past that point. Literally your only weakness is cinematics/dialogs that dump you in battle so that you can't abuse pre-battle casting.

 

[Desiderius]

End of first year KM:

Only missing two Advisors (tied up General chasing an Opportunity or could have had Warden instead of second Relations rank, though that may be better anyway), Artisans established with Quests completed (or waiting for response on second quest) in North Narl, South Narl, Outskirts, and Kamelands. Just finished second Bald Hilltop and Bloom just started. Community first seems like no brainer in retrospect, not sure how I missed it.

Benefit of getting Artisans up fast

Artisans give you some very useful items right off the bat, but even when they bring you garbage it sells for quite a bit of cash, which snowballs.

 

[Desiderius]

Alchemist has to hit once at AB, again at AB -5, again at AB -10, etc.

Lol, no. The Alchemist hits once with some of the highest DCs in the game on save or die debuffs. I never even took Fast Bombs.

Cael was talking about fast bombs, so I responded on fast bombs.

Again you run to the endgame. Weren't you the one complaining about Kinnie being garbage until level 13 or was that @RunningWolf ? Kinnie gets solid damage but no guarantee to hit. Overflow helps but it takes Kaherah a while to get her overflow and she doesn't get the full benefit. And if you want to stay touch you're giving up on Air (Plasma) which gives you Celerity at 7 or Earth (Magma) with the Deadly or whatever (never tried it). Doubling up on first two elements severaly reduces the breadth of Wild Talents and Blasts available and you even have to worry about SR IIRC, not to mention a good bit lower damage.

Just because tradeoffs exist in character creation doesn't mean that broken things inherent to the class like gathering power pre-combat don't exist. I'd say kineticist is fine early levels, a bit overpowered once you get stuff like Deadly Earth, vastly overpowered with virtually no equal if you are fully abusing pre-battle casting to the maximum extent past that point.

Only if you like to pull and kite. But that leaves you vulnerable to enemy casters. I like to take the fight to them. If you're doing that it's fine. Several of the harder fights don't let you initiate the fight, but I guess if you are and can sit there and full Gather and Blast that would be pretty damn good.

But if even an Eldritch Scoundrel can do this:

Yes I know he's immune to fire, that's the joke. Still dead.

It's hard to say without equal. There are no bullet sponges. Kinnie doesn't get Grandmaster Rod.

 

[Average Manatee]

Yeah but that's just comparing single target damage. Yes you can optimize another character to do that, but single target damage is the weakest thing a kineticist can be doing when they could instead be throwing out persistent AoEs that also trip with horrifically high CMBs and cause difficult terrain to screw movement of even things that aren't tripped. And you're using limited per-day spells and items to do that, where kineticist can blast all day.

 

[Desiderius]

It's... not optimized. It's an Eldritch Scoundrel. That's one cast with one Rod. Optimized Wiz could cast all day with Hellfire by that level too.

Not cheesy. Again, pulling and kiting aren't the only way to play. If you want to get Outflank chains going on Defaced Sisters or Ghost Mages or whatever you have to take the fight to them.

 

[Average Manatee]

It's... not optimized. It's an Eldritch Scoundrel. That's one cast with one Rod. Optimized Wiz could cast all day with Hellfire by that level too.

A wizard won't be getting sneak attack damage, sneak attack is optimizing for a single opening hit. Wizard can only cast all day with hellfire if by "all day" you mean ~5 fights (assuming 2 or 3 casts per fight). I wouldn't consider that to be nearly all day. And again, single target ray attacks are the weakest thing a kineticist can be doing.

Not cheesy. Again, pulling and kiting aren't the only way to play. If you want to get Outflank chains going on Defaced Sisters or Ghost Mages or whatever you have to take the fight to them.

OK, but it's the absurdly broken and overpowered way to play with kineticist. This is indisputable. When you can pre-cast enough AoE bullshit to kill practically everything short of Spawn of Rovagug in a single round before battle, you're a broken class.

 

[Blackmill]

Regarding the kineticist, their AoE infusions (like Deadly Earth and Cloud) seem to be implemented differently from the tabletop, so they do about 4x the tabletop damage. In my game, at least, the AoE infusions

1. naturally deal double the tabletop initial damage (usually 1/2 instead of 1/4)
2. for whatever reason, the initial (already doubled) damage is dealt twice

The class is pretty ridiculous. I don't know if any of the above is changed in WotR.

 

[Desiderius]

It's... not optimized. It's an Eldritch Scoundrel. That's one cast with one Rod. Optimized Wiz could cast all day with Hellfire by that level too.

A wizard won't be getting sneak attack damage, sneak attack is optimizing for a single opening hit. Wizard can only cast all day with hellfire if by "all day" you mean ~5 fights (assuming 2 or 3 casts per fight). I wouldn't consider that to be nearly all day. And again, single target ray attacks are the weakest thing a kineticist can be doing.

Not cheesy. Again, pulling and kiting aren't the only way to play. If you want to get Outflank chains going on Defaced Sisters or Ghost Mages or whatever you have to take the fight to them.

OK, but it's the absurdly broken and overpowered way to play with kineticist. This is indisputable. When you can pre-cast enough AoE bullshit to kill practically everything short of Spawn of Rovagug in a single round before battle, you're a broken class.

The Sneaks are incidental. I mean the damage breakdown is right there.

And yeah the Wiz companion you get in P:K *will* be getting Sneaks because she’s set up for Arcane Trickster. She’ll have more than enough casts to roast whatever you want by endgame, which is what you’re looking at.

BTW, when fully rested Kanerah doesn’t get Overflow bonus because of the way her class works. She has to suck corpses first. More staying power but bad against things like Hilltop or if you want to fight rested with the rest of your team.

 

[Average Manatee]

She’ll have more than enough casts to roast whatever you want by endgame, which is what you’re looking at.

For like... 5 fights. Not whole dungeons. Meanwhile a kineticist can solo Pitax trivially.

Granted by the late game it's not like being efficient with time matters much at all. Doesn't matter how much time you rest when the last half a year to a year of the game is passing time anyway.

BTW, when fully rested Kanerah doesn’t get Overflow bonus because of the way her class works. She has to suck corpses first. More staying power but bad against things like Hilltop or if you want to fight rested with the rest of your team.

Yeah Kalikke is generally better and more convenient to use, but you get both.

 

[Desiderius]

For like... 5 fights

Why do people insist on talking about shit they know nothing about?

Just play an AT. It's not going to kill you. Hellfire is a sixth-level spell.

Yeah Kalikke is generally better and more convenient to use, but you get both.

Water Blasts are physical. You can't get touch Composite on Kallikke until third element when game is almost over, and then only if you leave out her original element.

C'mon man.

Now of course you don't necessarily need to target Touch AC but then you're doing things similar to any number of other classes, and yes they can get that many dice too. Ask Haplo.

 

[Desiderius]

Was trying to stick to CG RP and see what works out differently, not a ton so far - Kobold Merchant at Trobold to unload your stuff, Tartuccio onside early, building with +2 Loyalty, +1 Culture, don't get to turn in Scythe Tree quest (but get decent loot/EXP up front.

Would really bite (with no obvious reward at all) to do on artisans tho.

Sry, you lose steady stream of items and quest EXP for rest of game

Wonder if they had originally planned for there to be more C&C on these but never developed it. Kind of makes alignment pointless tho since you can just choose the opposite, keep all the artisans, and quickly get back to full CG (or whatever you started with) with one conversation with a companion.

Man there's a lot of EXP out there for MC with good Trickery, Persasuion, and Knowledge (World)

Already hit lvl 11 on MC and Season just started.

 

[Average Manatee]

For like... 5 fights

Why do people insist on talking about shit they know nothing about?

Just play an AT. It's not going to kill you. Hellfire is a sixth-level spell.

Yes, and? If you're casting a 6th level spell every round in combat you're going to run out of spells very quickly. The number of spells a wizard gets is a pretty simple thing to figure out, and its not enough to clear long dungeons. Why do you insist on acting like you know anything?

Yeah Kalikke is generally better and more convenient to use, but you get both.

Water Blasts are physical. You can't get touch Composite on Kallikke until third element when game is almost over, and then only if you leave out her original element.

C'mon man.

Now of course you don't necessarily need to target Touch AC but then you're doing things similar to any number of other classes, and yes they can get that many dice too. Ask Haplo.

Doesn't really matter because, again, targetted attacks are generally among the weakest thing Kineticists can be doing.

 

[Cael]

She’ll have more than enough casts to roast whatever you want by endgame, which is what you’re looking at.

For like... 5 fights. Not whole dungeons. Meanwhile a kineticist can solo Pitax trivially.

Granted by the late game it's not like being efficient with time matters much at all. Doesn't matter how much time you rest when the last half a year to a year of the game is passing time anyway.

I don't know what you are talking about. My gang did dungeons without resting, even the whole of Pitax, Vordakai, Armag and Tenebrous. I think the few times I rested was because of specific reasons (e.g., restoring stat damage/drain) rather than running out of combat spells. I even walked into Vordakai without any rations and couldn't rest at all, which was my bad, but still came out OK. Killed off all the daemons in that room, too.

 

[Average Manatee]

I don't know what you are talking about. My gang did dungeons without resting, even the whole of Pitax, Vordakai, Armag and Tenebrous. I think the few times I rested was because of specific reasons (e.g., restoring stat damage/drain) rather than running out of combat spells. I even walked into Vordakai without any rations and couldn't rest at all, which was my bad, but still came out OK. Killed off all the daemons in that room, too.

He's comparing a wizard casting a 6th level spell every round like a kineticist would cast a kinetic blast every round. Obviously if you play smarter and use more efficient spells you can last longer, but then you can't really directly compare them to kineticist.