[RPG] Can Elemental Ascetic Kineticist really do this much damage

pathfinder-1epsionics

I'm a novice gamemaster with Pathfinder, preparing the first adventure after something like ten years of D&D 3.5.

I'm looking at Kineticist, Elemental Ascetic Archetype class for a NPC, at about 15th level. Elemental Flurry gives me the chance to do a Flurry when I use Kinect Fist Form Infusion, at the cost of 0 burn. I can add Infusion to every Simple and Composite Blast. At the 16th level a monk should have 4 bonus attacks with the flurry, so 7 attacks (even if maybe the bonus attack is only one, i don't know if elemental ascetic's flurry grows like monk's flurry). Well then, Fist Infusion give 1d6 extra each 3d6, so Composite does something like 16d6+depends, so 5d6 extra, for a total of 21d6 at the cost of 2 burn points.

So, at sixteen, with Strength 16|3 and Constitution 20|5 and Powerful Fist free for infusion specialization it will be 16d6+5d6 + 16 + 5 + 1d12 + 3 at the cost of only 1 burn point (composite specialization)

Now, what am I doing wrong? For me this is simply too much, with internal buffer +3 I can do something like this 3 times a day:

  • 4 attacks: minimum: 184 maximum: 648
  • 7 attacks: minimum: 322 maximum: 1134

Seriously, this is ridiculous, and it's very simple to achieve. Do the rules actually work this way?

Best Answer

There's one big thing you're missing about Kinetic Fist. It's not extra. It's total.

You deal an additional 1d6 points of damage per 3 dice of your kinetic blast’s damage (minimum 1d6), and this damage is of the same type as your kinetic blast’s damage. This extra damage ignores spell resistance and doesn’t apply any modifiers to your kinetic blast’s damage, such as your Constitution modifier.

So at level 15, you've got as you've said a composite blast that deals 16d6+stuff damage. That means that each hit with the Kinetic Fist infusion deals +5d6 damage. There is no additional damage from Constitution and none off of the composite blast's normal base damage. Powerful Fist will up it a die step or two.

The Elemental Ascetic's flurry scales like the monk's, so you've got the ability to make three additional attacks on a full attack (technically speaking, they don't get four bonus attacks at level 16, it's just at 1/8/15. Iteratives do push it to seven though, so that's a minor nitpick).

Your damage per attack should 1d3 (base unarmed damage) + 5d# (kinetic fist) + 3 (Strength modifier) + potential amulet of mighty fists enhancement bonus + other bonuses.

Because the Elemental Flurry class feature gives you full BAB for the attacks, you've got six attacks. At level 16, you'd have seven attacks. This gives you a total of these, assuming every attack hits (which is not guaranteed, because of the massive iterative penalties):

Four Attacks

  • Base die 1d6 (no Powerful Fist): 88 average (36 min, 144 max)
  • Base die 1d8 (1 burn Powerful Fist): 108 average (36 min, 184 max)
  • Base die 1d10 (2 burn Powerful Fist): 128 average (36 min, 224 max)
  • Base die 1d12 (3 burn Powerful Fist): 148 average (36 min, 264 max)

Six Attacks

  • Base die 1d6 (no Powerful Fist): 126 average (48 min, 210 max)
  • Base die 1d8 (1 burn Powerful Fist): 156 average (48 min, 270 max)
  • Base die 1d10 (2 burn Powerful Fist): 186 average (48 min, 330 max)
  • Base die 1d12 (3 burn Powerful Fist): 216 average (48 min, 390 max)

Seven Attacks (level 16)

  • Base die 1d6 (no Powerful Fist): 145 average (50 min, 243 max)
  • Base die 1d8 (1 burn Powerful Fist): 180 average (50 min, 313 max)
  • Base die 1d10 (2 burn Powerful Fist): 215 average (50 min, 383 max)
  • Base die 1d12 (3 burn Powerful Fist): 250 average (50 min, 453 max)

The numbers would go up slightly if you had a higher Strength (Elemental Overflow's bonus really ought to go to it). There's also a potential +1 to +5 on each attack, depending on your enhancement bonus from an amulet of mighty fists, and other possible damage boosts. It's decently powerful damage and good spike damage a few times per day, but it's not going to win the DPR olympics any time soon.

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