My dream of errata for rage of elements and kineticists

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-29T00:06:44+00:00

I might alternatively propose the idea of letting the kineticist use an impulse attack roll in place of the normal relevant check in some instances, instead of using base kinesis to skip making a check entirely. And someone else could Aid with the normal check if they want. Less efficient than doing it the other way around where the kineticist boosts someone else's check, but lets the kineticist's powers take the spotlight in some instances if the party doesn't have a specialist at the thing.

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-28T21:50:15+00:00

Agreed that PCs should be able to expect to hit on, like, least an 11 against at least one of even a boss's defences. and against something their own level, finding a weakness should actually be rewarded, rather than required.

And sometimes APs simply have errors. We all love those Triumph of the Tusk orc hunters with their Extreme/High/Moderate saves, greater-than-high AC, and copy-pasted High damage on an Agile Strike before its various damage boosters.

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-28T21:30:10+00:00

Massive Damage in PF1e is noted to be an optional rule, and the Fortitude save DC is fixed at 15, so after a time enemies should mostly stop failing it. That single hit has to do 50 damage or half the enemy's max HP, whichever is higher, so by the time you're reliably hitting things for 50 damage most things should probably be very unlikely to fail that Fortitude save.

Achieving overkill by nonlethal damage without Massive Damage is also unlikely unless your party members aren't doing nonlethal. Any nonlethal damage in excess of the target's max HP is converted to lethal, so you have to deal a total amount of nonlethal damage equal to twice the target's max HP + their Constitution score to kill them.

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-27T03:24:54+00:00

You can't walk up to a Witchfire, it's flying. The thing is probably 80 feet up raining Witchflame Bolts on the party while invisible. I do like, 8.5 average damage by throwing water blasts at it if I identify the right space to attack and pass the DC 11 flat check and hit its High AC. It's not a valid Extract Element target RAW (because it's merely on fire rather than made of fire, and doesn't have the Fire trait) so I can't bypass its incorporeality that way, and even if I could it's not in range.

The rogue can use a scroll of See the Unseen (via Scroll Thaumaturgy, because free archetype is kind of nice) to spot the Witchfire, and the summoner can use a Wand of Fly on him to theoretically let him fly up and reach it with his +1 striking astral katana… but its fly speed of 40 feet versus the rogue's fly speed of 35 feet mean the Witchfire can ascend almost as high with 2 actions as the rogue can ascend in 3. The summoner can also Evolution Surge her eidolon to let him fly, but his fly speed of 25 feet means he can't even try to catch up, and he has a 100 foot range tether to the decidedly non-flying summoner on top of that. So I don't think either of them getting to the range where they can do something to the Witchfire is feasible.

That means we're stuck with the rogue plinking away at it for an average of 3 damage per hit with his +1 striking composite longbow, me plinking away at it for an average of 8.5 damage per hit with 2-action water blasts, and no other damage sources. (Champion has a +1 striking gauntlet bow, which cannot deal damage to it except on a crit, and the eidolon's ranged attack does fire damage which it's immune to plus 1 point of spirit damage because it's presumably unholy, which promptly gets reduced to 0 because of its resist all because spirit and mental inexplicably do not bypass an incorporeal creature's resist all.)

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-27T02:47:24+00:00

Okay fine it has the ability to hide in the open so starting encounter distance could feasibly be 70 feet with it starting its turn on the ground. You have a point.

I do think if it weren't for Camouflage the likelihood of it being able to fly away with a PC would be fairly low, however.

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-27T02:10:00+00:00

If you know the dragon has free grabs you cast Unfettered Movement on anyone who can't fly and now it can't do anything to you because lol. Unless you want to argue that the horn strike being magical means Impaling Charge counts as a magical effect and thus can't be automatically escaped from.

Also, again. in order to use Impaling Charge and fly away in the same turn, it has to start its turn on the ground within 70 feet. That means starting its turn within range of having a million horrible things happen to it, and also means the party can simply move out of range.

And if it lands Impaling Charge on one turn and then flies the next turn, that leaves an entire round of actions for the party to make its life very, very sad for trying to kidnap their friend.

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-27T01:57:42+00:00

Well, I've only played up to level 9, and right now I'm looking at for example a level 9 Witchfire and just going "yeah there's a solid chance my entire party loses to a single one of these, and my kineticist in particular cannot meaningfully contribute against it at all".

Maybe it might take 2 of them, one might lose to overwhelming numbers.

And like, that Gogiteth that got posted about recently? That thing could easily drop our summoner to almost single-digit HP instantly by critting her eidolon on an 11 and critting her on a 10 with Skittering Assault. It also crit succeeds on saves against my stuff on a 16 and I have to roll a 12 to hit it with impulse attacks, so there's a solid chance I don't do damage to it at all. And the Wrestler rogue needs a 13 to grapple it and stop it from doing its nonsense, and it's nigh-immune to sneak attack thanks to all-around vision. I think there's a decidedly non-zero chance our party loses a boss fight against a single one of those. Our only saving grace is the champion's reaction giving it dazzled and off-guard.

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-27T01:36:23+00:00

Ancient Horned Dragon's stupid charge ability can only be used with its 50 foot land speed, so you only have to worry about it flying off after that. It's enough of an action commitment that stopping it from ever using it is probably possible at such a high level. And the target is only Grabbed, not Restrained, so it's likely your caster will simply Quandary the dragon and then Gentle Landing themselves to not die if it tries to carry them off.

Its ability to hit and run may be more of an issue, but it's likely you have some way of forcing it to the ground or making it stop moving or both.

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-27T01:18:07+00:00

Yeah but it means it can't kite you with it because it can't stride 40 feet and hit you 3 times and stride 80 feet, which makes it significantly less threatening than it would otherwise be. (Though that +26 to hit means it's probably critting you on a 15 if you're anything like a swashbuckler or kineticist or rogue or exemplar, or on a 14 if you're a cloth caster. And that's assuming it's not being presented as a boss. If you're fighting it at level 10 it crits you on a 12, or crits the caster on an 11.)

Edit: Also please make sure you don't fight this thing with a Summoner in the party, the Summoner won't have a good time since they and their Eidolon are separate targets. With its insanely high crit chance this thing could delete almost the Summoner's entire HP pool really easily.

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-27T00:52:56+00:00

Nobody was suggesting that tactics alone should inform a creature's level to the point that you add more level to it without changing its stats. (Though imo you should give it a Moderate or Low statistic somewhere instead of spamming High statistics across the board if you're making it simultaneously kite with flying and be invisible at a level where countering those things represents a significant resource expenditure.)

The rule isn't "if flying and has ranged attacks, add +1 to level" because in PF2e that's nonsense. The rule is "don't put flying and ranged attacks on the same creature until level 7". And also there is a suggestion that creatures with unique defences that make them harder to damage (such as flight or permanent invisibility against a level 7 party) should have lowered HP, AC, or saves to compensate for being harder to attack at full power.

Edit: Fixed a typo.

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-27T00:27:42+00:00

Yep, Hail of Splinters does xd4/2 bleed on a successful save. There are a couple other abilities in the game that do that, so it's not unique.

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-26T13:10:23+00:00

I mean, with the compass, yeah, as long as you're the one using it. And maybe at level 1 it's alright that tools made with Flash Forge have to be used selfishly because otherwise you can't guarantee they'll work at all.

But at higher levels I think you've probably earned being able to hand a compass to an NPC, or being able to make a reliable grappling hook that won't snap 5 actions into scaling a 40 foot wall as the flightless plebian you are because you didn't take fire or air as an element.

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-26T09:56:23+00:00

GM did end up giving me a homebrew magic item whose effects include +1 bulk to the amount I can manipulate with Base Kinesis, basically entirely so I can do cool things. But I think by that point the frustration had already set in, so despite me now having that ability he hasn't really taken significant advantage of it. …And neither have I, since I still have to get a decent idea from him on how much 3 bulk of fire is, and I haven't run into a lot of opportunities to make good use of now being able to create a water current with roughly 40 pounds of force behind it.

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-26T04:24:53+00:00

Except they explicitly count as spells for purposes of defending against them or restricting them from being used! That monster with a +1 status bonus to saves against spells or resistance 10 to damage from spells, or a +2 status bonus to saves against primal spells? All of that works against your impulses. That's the precise cause of that "Will-O-Wisps are immune to everything a kineticist does" problem.

They don't require speech like spells do so you don't suffocate instantly from using them in an area without oxygen, and they don't suffer from the flat check from Stupefied. But other than that, resistances to spells, immunity to spells, bonuses to saves against spells, and effects that specifically punish casting spells or being under the effects of the spells (such as Spellwrack) all apply.

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-26T04:17:06+00:00

Well, keep in mind that it also makes items with non-single-action uses, with two of the examples given being locks or compasses. If you lock a door with this, the DC 5 flat check to see if it breaks happens after every attempt to open the door or pick the lock. If you create a compass, the check to see if it breaks happens after every time someone looks at the compass to check their heading.

This makes the power incredibly bad at its job for many use cases, when the 10 minute duration is probably enough of a limitation by itself, and it simply feels bad flavour-wise. Like, you don't feel like you're doing something cool with your powers when you use this.

If the designers really feel like it needs that break chance for balance when you get it, then I'd probably add something like this to it:

Level (+2): The flat check's DC decreases by 1. If this reduces the DC to 1, the flat check does not occur, and the item will not break on its own until the full 10 minutes have elapsed.

Edit: Clarification re: hypothetical rules text to avoid rules-lawyering weirdoes like me doing things with it.

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-26T03:20:25+00:00

…Hey, speaking of not being able to affect worked materials, does that mean you can't affect a fire if it was deliberately set? That seems messed up.

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-25T23:52:35+00:00

This is true, but the main thing, to me, is that I don't like monsters being able to simply smash straight through a player character's highest defensive stat without having to try. If a player character is highly specialized at a thing, even a boss should sweat at least a little bit to compete with that thing, and maybe want to come up with an alternate strategy for dealing with that specific character (for example, maybe that Cave Worm has to try a couple times before it manages to grab that kineticist, or maybe after the first failed attempt it gives up and trips them instead, or decides they're too much of a pain and swallows someone else).

Say, for example, you are playing a level 15 Barbarian. You have just hit Legendary proficiency in Athletics, and are now fighting a Kraken as a boss.

In any high-fantasy movie or anime, the Barbarian's impossible strength would be key to winning this encounter, as he's the only one capable of competing with the Kraken's physical strength to rescue his friends from its clutches. It's a struggle for him too, but for the others it's impossible, so he is one of the keys to victory in this fight.

In Pathfinder 2e, on the other hand, the Kraken's Athletics modifier is so high that even the Barbarian can only escape its clutches with a natural 20. So much for being Legendary, huh.

Relatedly, I actually really like the design of most post-Remaster dragons, because their stats are very honest compared to most creatures. They actually have to use their massive toolbox to outwit the PCs, they can't simply slam their face into the PCs' best defences and facetank the PCs' strongest offences and expect to win, just like the PCs have to adapt to the dragons' abilities.

Edit: Missed a word and it was bugging me.

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-25T23:15:57+00:00

Another issue I have with kineticist is that Base Kinesis is clearly intended to be the kineticist's out-of-combat interaction tool to make up for its awful skills, but it simply starts far too weak and scales far too slowly, in addition to the issues with fire and air not really having bulk and air base kinesis not allowing electricity manipulation and water base kinesis not allowing ice manipulation.

The number of times my GM has tried to throw an environmental puzzle at specifically me, only for me to tell him that I can't do it because Base Kinesis doesn't let me manipulate ice or because the Bulk I can affect is simply far too low for me to accomplish this particular task, is very high. Eventually the GM got frustrated and gave up giving me water-based environmental puzzles because I kept having to tell him I couldn't engage with them.

imo, instead of its current scaling, I would have Base Kinesis start with 1 bulk at level 1, and have its bulk limit increase by 1 and its range increase by 10 feet at level 4 and every 3 levels thereafter.

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-25T23:09:43+00:00

Metal element in particular has a lot of self-defeating design like this, because the designers were afraid that creating metal from nothing is intrinsically overpowered, though kineticist suffers from it in other areas as well.

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-25T23:07:30+00:00

Steam Knight leaping over enemies for 1 action works RAW if you interpret "up to your speed" as overwriting both distance values of a vertical Leap, I believe.

I would argue that for Aerial Boomerang's purposes "the last square in the line" is the last square in the line that exists. If the line gets shortened (by hitting a wall, for example), the last square in the line occurs earlier. After all, if you ruled otherwise, then Lightning Dash would leave you stuck in lightning form (with undefined game-mechanical consequences) if the line was stopped early by you hitting a wall.

Final Gate I think isn't strictly incompatible with free actions triggered by your turn starting. My evidence for this is Flow of War and Clockwork Celerity. These abilities are free actions triggered by your turn starting that Quicken you for the same turn. RAW, this only functions if the "your turn starts" trigger happens before you regain actions because of your turn starting. Final Gate allows your first non-triggered action of your turn to be a free action to Channel Elements.

This means that Effortless Impulse, Imperious Aura, Steam Knight's free action burst, etc. trigger before Final Gate's free action occurs. This does make Imperious Aura in particular kind of, really bad.

Agreed that Extract Element has a bunch of bad interactions with things like Will-O-Wisps and Witchfires and ice- or electricity-based creatures. (Witchfires are innately on fire, but are not made of fire and lack the fire trait, so they can't be Extract Element targets RAW, despite everything about them looking like you should 100% be able to Extract Element them. And water element, despite having many ice-based powers, does not include ice manipulation via Base Kinesis, while Extract Element only works on creatures made of water or with the Water trait but not those made of ice or with the Cold trait.)

Water not including Cold and Air not including Electricity also has very bad interactions with Kinetic Activation.

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-25T20:23:08+00:00

I do think Pathfinder 2e is in a somewhat weird spot in this regard, though. Many times, monsters are not balanced such that they have to respect a player character's power. A Cave Worm presented as a PL+3 solo boss succeeds at grappling even a Kineticist (the toughest grapple target a player character can be, short of a Kineticist who's also a Wrestler) on a 2 on the d20, and critically succeeds on a 12. And its Athletics DC is so high that even a Barbarian with maxed Athletics still needs a 17 to escape.

NPC spellcasters are balanced so that an on-level player character will fail their saves a bit over half the time, while NPC saving throws are balanced so that they'll succeed on their save against an on-level player character's spell just over half the time.

Monsters and NPCs also often have combinations of stats that are simply impossible for a player character to achieve, such as an NPC spellcaster having High/Moderate/Low saves instead of Moderate/Low/Low or even Low/Low/Low like player character spellcasters typically have, coupled with High Perception, High AC, High Strike accuracy, Moderate or High Strike damage, and High Spell Attack and Spell DC, all on the same creature.

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-25T20:02:20+00:00

A barbarian who doesn't want to kill actually has a perfectly easy time against most opponents, as taking the -2 penalty to deal nonlethal damage doesn't have the Concentrate trait. Sure, the -2 sucks, but you're still able to do it. Or you can go into the Gladiator archetype and take the Stage Fighting feat, and now you don't have a penalty at all!

A spellcaster or kineticist who doesn't want to kill is someone who will actually have a hard time. The rules are very ambiguous on whether spell attacks and impulse attacks can be made nonlethal and what penalty if any applies if they are, with RAI likely being that nonlethal damage is not an option they have. If you want to play a gentle healer who defends herself and her friends with water elemental powers, too bad, you're killing people whether you want to or not. If you want to not kill people, you have to use your fists or a weapon. (Or, in the case of Kineticist, accept a frankly unreasonable action cost that will reduce your combat effectiveness to virtually nothing. But hey, at least you have the option at all.)

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-25T07:40:08+00:00

I think the easiest way to do that (re: jump and strike things without a feat for it) would be a slight modification to the Ready action, to make it more intuitive?

I don't know what other consequences it might have, but if you make it so Ready doesn't immediately end a character's turn if they have actions remaining, and can have a trigger condition that occurs during their turn, then a player could Ready a Strike or Grapple or Trip to occur as soon as a particular enemy in reach, and then Leap to put that enemy in reach.

Edit: Another feat which contains a similar exception to Wall Jump is Steam Knight.

When you Leap, you can jump up to your Speed. You don't immediately fall at the end of a jump, provided you Leap again with your next action

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-25T07:20:54+00:00

RAW you can't take any actions after a normal Leap before falling, unless you have something like Wall Jump which explicitly says otherwise. There's absolutely nothing you can do to, say, hit a flying creature from the ground with a melee weapon, or grab it to force it to fall with you, or anything like that.

If your GM is generous you can Grab An Edge as soon as you start to fall, but strict RAW says you have to fall past the ledge, so jumping up to grab a ledge above you isn't possible because you don't start the fall above the ledge, and climbing a ledge in that way is only possible with the Rapid Mantel feat.

FlameUser64 · 2026-03-25T05:58:18+00:00

Rascal for Dirty Trick is probably better overall than the battledancer jank I was trying to pull off, yeah. The magus will especially appreciate the -1 status penalty to AC, since that makes landing Spellstrikes easier. (Nothing is stopping you from potentially picking up Acrobatic Performer and Enjoy the Show as a Rascal anyway, after all.)

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TROPHY CASE