We enter into March with another update for Path of the Wilds, and…
The writing is just about finished! The first draft, anyway.
The page totals are where I expected them to be, tapping out 104 pages (about 95 pages of content). I still haven’t proofread the whole document, and there’s undoubtedly some stuff that I’ll end up changing a bit upon a second pass. The art is obviously the biggest piece left: I’m already in talks with a few people to get some pieces made. If you know anyone that is interested in doing art commissions, be sure to send them to the contact page to connect with me!
This week’s preview is one of the last bits of the archetypes chapter I did, which is kineticist talents. This is one of the classes I have the least experience with in Pathfinder, so I’m not 100% sold on the balance of abilities here. About half of them use new spells in the book, like control ice or hand of stone, but since not all of those spells have been previewed I didn’t include theme here.
A big goal for these talents was to improve on the otherwise-lacking wood element, and give it a stronger identity as a support-focused kineticist. Take a look for yourself and let me know what you think.
ARBOREAL STRIKE
Element wood; Type form infusion; Level 5; Burn 3
Associated Blasts autumn, spring, summer, verdant, winter, wood
Saving Throw none
You charge a nearby tree with the power of your kinetic blast. This acts as arboreal hammerUM, except each hit dealt by the tree adds half the damage of your kinetic blast. The infusion lasts a number of rounds equal to your Constitution modifier or until you use it again.
LIFEBURST
Element wood; Type form infusion; Level 4; Burn 3
Associated Blasts positive, positive admixture
Saving Throw Will half
You create a circular burst of life force. All creatures within a 30-foot-radius burst centered on you take your blast’s damage. This infusion is treated as the channel energy class feature for the purpose of effects related to channel energy, including channel resistance and qualifying for feats. For feats that require spending uses of channel energy, each “use” requires you to pay this infusion’s burn cost (for example, using Quick Channel requires accepting 6 burn, instead of two uses of channel energy), and any effects based on the damage dealt by channel energy (such as Channel Smite) use half your blast’s damage. It cannot be used to heal creatures, only to harm.
PLUMMETING INFUSION
Element universal; Type substance infusion; Level 2; Burn 1
Associated Blasts any physical blast
Saving Throw none
You weigh down the target with thick mud, entangling vines, or some other elemental hindrance. If used on a flying target, it must make a Fly check (with the same DC as for saves against your kinetic blast) to avoid losing 10 feet of altitude. For every five points it fails the check by, it falls an additional 5 feet.
RAINFALL
Element Water; Type utility (Su); Level 4; Burn 0
You can create rain clouds at-will, with a maximum range of 120 feet. The rain affects a 30-foot-radius cylinder, 60 feet high, and has the same penalties as typical rain (-4 penalty on Perception checks and ranged attack rolls). The rain begins at the start of your next turn and lasts as long as you concentrate, and you can move the cloud up to 30 feet as part of concentrating on the effect. You can accept 1 point of burn to increase the duration to 1 round per kineticist level and eliminate the need to concentrate on the effect.
STONE FORM
Element earth; Type utility (Sp); Level 7; Burn 0
You can infuse your flesh with elemental earth to turn to stone. You can transform into a statue (as the spell) at-will and are immune to petrification. You can accept 1 point of burn to remove petrification from a creature, acting as stone to flesh.
SYMBIOTIC INFUSION
Element wood; Type substance infusion; Level 3; Burn 2
Prerequisites wood healer
Associated Blasts autumn, positive, positive admixture, spring, summer, verdant, winter
Saving Throw none
Creatures that take damage from your blast are surrounded by faintly-glowing spores for a number of rounds equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum 1); these spores are not bright enough to affect light level or stealth in any way. Any creature that attacks a target under the effect of your symbiotic infusion leeches some of its vitality with each strike, gaining temporary hit points equal to half your Constitution modifier (minimum 1). If you used a positive blast, positive admixture blast, or verdant blast, they instead gain temporary hit points equal to your full Constitution modifier (minimum 1). These temporary hit points last for 1 minute and do not stack. A creature cannot gain more temporary hit points than they dealt damage.
SYMBIOTIC INFUSION, GREATER
Element wood; Type substance infusion; Level 7; Burn 4
Prerequisites symbiotic infusion, wood healer
Associated Blasts autumn, positive, positive admixture, spring, summer, verdant, winter
Saving Throw none
The effect of your spores grows stronger. This acts as the symbiotic infusion wild talent, except the temporary hit points now stack up to your kineticist level + your Constitution modifier.
THERMAL INFUSION
Element fire or water; Type substance infusion; Level 4; Burn 2
Associated Blasts blizzard, blue flame, cold, fire, ice, magma, plasma, steam, summer, winter
Saving Throw Fortitude negates
You blast either overwhelms the target with heat or saps their strength with bitter cold. A creature that fails its saving throw is fatigued. This cannot cause a creature that is already fatigued to become exhausted. Treat this effect as hypothermia (if your blast dealt cold damage) or heatstroke (if your blast dealt fire damage). Creatures that do not take fire or cold damage from your blast are unaffected by this infusion.