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Kael_Thor
2016-08-30, 04:09 PM
The kineticist class is very intruiging to me, a elemental spell caster who drains her own life to fuel her abilities. However the class has some serious problems in my opinion, and it didn't take me long to find that I'm not the only one who has concerns about the class. So I decided to try and change some of the things I didn't like about the class.

I post it here, because there are people here that are far better than me on balancing classes, and I would like some feedback on my changes.

Keep in mind I do not have access to the 3rd party supplements for the class, I have only the Pathfinder Srd to lean on. Also rather than write up the entire class, I instead wrote my changes to it, so basically everything I haven't mentioned is the same as on the Srd.

HD: d10

Gain Knowledge: Planes as a class skill

Wild Talents: Works as on the Srd, except: At 4th and every even-numbered kineticist level after that(6th, 8th and so on), a kineticist can replace one of her utility wild talents with another utility wild talent of the same level or lower. She can't replace a wild talent that she used to qualify for another of her wild talents.

Burn: A Kineticist channels the power of the elements to fuel her powers, but for her more powerful abilities she must supply the power on her own, drawing upon her own inner reserves to channel more power than normal by accepting burn. Some of her wild talents allow her to accept burn in exchange for a greater effect, while others require her to accept a certain amount of burn to use that talent at all. A kineticist can accept only 1 point of burn per round. This limit rises to 2 points of burn at 6th level, and rises by 1 additional point every 3 levels thereafter.
She can safely accept a number of burn equal to her Con modifier per day. This is referred to as her Burn tolerance. Once she has reached this number she has exhausted her inner reserves. Should the kineticist wish to push beyond her limits, she can, at increasing risks to her health, attempt to accept even more burn.
If the kineticist tries to accept burn beyond her burn tolerance, she must roll a Fortitude save with the DC being 10+1/2 Kineticist level rounded up+the amount of Burn she has. Thus the DC for a lvl 6 Kineticist who has already accepted 3 burn that day would be 16.
If she succeeds on the save, she gains burn as normal. If she fails, she does gain burn, but she also takes nonlethal damage equal to her character level+ the amount of burn she now has. This damage cannot be healed through normal means, only through a full rest is this damage healed. After a full night's rest, all burn and burn damage is removed.
At lvl 6 and every 6 levels after, the amount of burn the Kineticist can safely accept per day increases by 1, culminating in a burn tolerance of 3+Con mod at lvl 18.

Kinetic Blast: At 1st level, a kineticist gains the simple kinetic blast wild talents of her element. The kineticist use her Kineticist level in place of her Base Attack Bonus when using Kinetic Blast. Essentially, for Kinetic Blast purposes, a kineticist counts as having full BaB.
Each element has two simple kinetic blasts: a physical and an energy blast, the kineticist gains both upon gaining access to the element.
Physical blasts are ranged attacks that deal an amount of damage equal to 1d8+1+Con Mod points of physical damage associated with the element(see individual blasts), increasing by 1d8+1 for every two kineticist levels beyond 1st. Spell resistance does not apply against physical blasts.
Energy blasts are ranged touch attacks that deal an amount of 1d8+1/2 Con Mod points of energy damage associated with the element(see individual blasts), increasing by 1d8 for every two kineticist levels beyond 1st.

Gather Power: Works as on the Srd, except: If the kineticist takes damage during or after gathering power and before using the kinetic blast that releases it, she must succeed at a concentration check (DC = 10+ damage taken + effective spell level of her kinetic blast) or lose her focus, loosing the energy she gathered.

Infusion: Works as on the Srd, except: At 5th and every odd-numbered kineticist level after that(7th, 9th and so on), a kineticist can replace one of her infusions with another infusion of the same effective spell level or lower. She can't replace an infusion that she used to qualify for another of her infusions.

Elemental Overflow: Change “+1 to attack per 3 kineticist levels” to “+1 to attack per 4 kineticist levels”.
Blast specialisation (replaces Infusion specialization): Whenever the kineticist uses one or more infusions with a blast, she reduces the total burn cost of the blast by 1. She reduces the cost by 1 additional point at 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th and 20th levels. At level 16, she also reduces the cost of composite blasts by 1.

Internal Buffer: Same size as Elemental Overflow bonus to hit, refills whenever burn is removed.

Expanded Element: Upon gaining a new element, the kineticist gains all simple blasts of that element. She also gains all composite blasts whose prerequisites she meets, as well as the basic wild talent of her new element. She can now learn infusions and utility talents associated with her new element, just as she would for her primary element.
Removed: “If the kineticist's expanded element is different from her primary element, she treats her kineticist level as 4 levels lower for the purpose of determining which wild talents she can learn from her expanded element.“
If the kineticist chooses to expand her understanding of an element she already has, she gains an additional utility wild talent and infusion of her choice from that element, as if from her infusion or wild talent class feature, as appropriate.

Expanded Utility(replaces Composite Specialisation): The kineticist can use utility wild talents she knows without being restricted to what element that wild talent is normally associated with, ignoring any elemental requirements or restrictions (but not any other requirements or restrictions). For example, someone with both Air and Earth can use the Air utility talent Air Reach with both Air and Earth elements. Effectively the utility talent becomes Earth Reach when used with the Earth element.
In other words, every utility talent the kineticist knows effectively becomes a universal utility talent.

Notes: I am unsure about my burn limit. Just Con per day for free might be a bit low, but 3+Con would be a bit much with the ability to accept burn even after that. I am also unsure about leaving the damage as nonlethal or lethal.

Feats:
Extra Burn: You can bear more burn than others. Increase Burn tolerance by +1. This feat can be taken multiple times and does stack. (Not sure if I'm going to keep this)


To do/future changes to do:
Magic items for the kineticist, one of them being a variation of the Amulet of Mighty Fists
More feats
More wild talents and infusions
Improve Expanded Element for those selecting the same element multiple times
Change basic wild talents of elements, make them more useful.
Make sure each element has a physical and an energy blast
Work on archetypes
Write down the class in its entirety, rather than just list the changes

JennTora
2016-08-30, 05:22 PM
I'm not sure kineticist needs more hp. They already use con as their primary ability. D10 in pathfinder also means full bab. Which might be more than they need. (I play one in pfs now and hit things pretty often.) And Maybe it's not as good at higher levels, but I find I'm consistently killing things I hit with my blasts as it is. I don't feel they need bumping up to a d8...

Also maybe it would be a good idea to note the specific problems you have with the class as in occult adventures.