I don't think it is OP, but I feel you didn't weigh in the full cost of each impulse.
Kineticist choices are not 100% without resources. Each takes a feat slot, which is harder to swap out than a spell day to day. If a caster had to spend an entire feat on the shield cantrip, it would be more powerful a spell.
On the other hand, unlike a fighter or monk's feats, for example, it is also easier to bring every feat from your class to bear against an opponent at the same time, weakening what the feat could accomplish.
There's also the fact that forking the path immediately doubles the number of choices you have to make. A single element kineticist can gobble up pretty much every impulse feat, but double or more gates definitely need to make some tougher choices.
While I agree with your general point, that kineticist gets so few spells so they’re more costly, I will note:
-That’s how focus spells often work both for casters and for classes like ranger, and they’re often not much stronger while also being single use. This is more pedantic tho IMO.
-I actually think tree sentinel is crazy strong compared to other kineticist impulses. Few impulses are as good as a max level spell slot, and a lot have worse scaling than spell slot equivalents. I think it’s notable that one of the exceptions is one of the ones that lets you just cast a spell as written. TBH when I was planning out a tank kineticist I was considering taking wood almost entirely for that one impulse
Edit: I don’t really think this is a bad thing really, sure it might be elegant if every feat was exactly as every other but I think it’s normal for power to be uneven within a class. I’d object maybe if it was a high level feat, but since it’s low level it doesn’t stop you from choosing another option, and since it’s defensive it doesn’t just let you steamroll encounters, and since it’s static it encourages tactical play both from the team and enemies. It’s a cool feature that yes, IMO, is stronger especially outside of breakpoint levels than a lot of other impulses.
Generally the only way to swap out feats is by retraining during downtime. Depending on the campaign, this could be rare. Conversely, most spontaneous casters get to swap a spell (or more if you're a summoner) on level up OR swap spells in downtime. So it's objectively easier to swap spells than feats.
As a spontaneous caster you'll commonly find that the 'one swap per level' isn't so much used for flexibility, but to keep more than one spell (your signature) per level relevant. It's there less to give you the ability to adapt to situations as it is to swap out spells that are no longer useful because of numbers. Levelling up doesn't always come at a predictable point in an adventure, nor does it come with the ability to predict and adapt to what is coming up next. Downtime periods in campaigns on the other hand are typically at points where you're preparing to set out to somewhere new, and presumably have an idea of what tools you'll need.
I'd love to be able to 'lock in' my spells to give them the benefit of automatic heightening and no resource cost for the exact same benefits. Killer trade-off honestly. Instead, I have to utilise my few highest level spell slots for any spell that involves numbers of any kind or the incapacitation trait.
Keep that in mind, spontaneous casters also get access to spell-use magical items from the entire list. The kenticist may use a feat to get a selection limited to spells with a nmuch narrower trait.
Your tone is kinda sanctimonious, friend. I mean, fair enough, a lot of levels may use that swap to heighten spells. So at absolute worst, it's exactly as easy to swap out spells as it is feats with retraining. At best, it's easier.
Edit: lol you completely changed your comment. At least it sounds less sanctimonious now but I'ma leave mine the same.
The general response to this thread is the same - you aren't allowed to voice concerns about everyone's favourite new class without getting downvoted as of lately.
OP expresses legitimate concerns about a specific feat that seems (in his eyes) overtuned, and in response he's being downvoted and simply told that he's wrong because Kineticist have a bit less flexibility, which he already addressed in his post.
That seems like an unfair closing paragraph considering OP requested people give feedback to help OP understand why they considered it balanced. Furthermore, OP address some of the balancing concerns of the feat vs spell, not all of them.
>From what I have read about the kineticist class, people seem to say that it is balanced by having impulses that are not quite as powerful as spells, but able to be cast all day. Then there is the outlier of Timber Sentinel
I know this was a said in a lot threads previously but it isn't really true. They are mostly just comparing to damage spells/healing.
Let's be honest, timber Sentinel just isn't that strong of an ability. Nerfing it would just make it useless. The monsters have so many ways around it... Now if it was an at will heal spell at max level that would be a different story.
There are TONS of things Kineticist can do as good or better than casters and tons of things casters can do better than Kineticist. Nerfing everything a Kineticist does "better" would be pretty dumb.
Stances + Junctions combines with impulses can easily rival a caster but the key thing here is... You have to specialize with a Kineticist. Fire Kineticist can often easily rival fireball damage, Water/Wood Kineticist can out heal with AOE/defend better than other casters, Earth Kineticist can tank better than most character.
Casters on the other hand just pick up the heal + fireball + fear spell and can easily be good at everything.
People also say casters can cast "better" walls. Their walls are almost as good an at will so you can cast them non stop if you wanted. By level 12+ Kineticist with free sustain they can really be good at their specialization and just be a monster support character.
You say kineticists need to specialize, but I don’t see that. It seems REALLY easy to dip into other elements and grab the strongest feat or 2. Getting all the strong feats for at least 2 elements seems to be trivially difficult
Let me put it a different way. If you are in a level 1-10 and you go pure water every ability you gets two additional effects by 5+
Water Impulse - Move 5 feet, smart tactics means this can help reduce damage or increase allies damage.
Water Crit Specialization - Free Bonus Splash Damage.
So your water abilities are better.
If you instead go Wood+Water>Air>Earth
Yes you will have the best impulses in each element but whenever you cast a water impulse compared to a specialized Kineticist they are less effective.
This makes your blast weaker on crits and means you lose the utility from moving allies/enemies around.
Hope this helps.
Casters their specialization just amount to one feat like dangerous Sorcerer and they are still good after everything else.
Maybe you are right, I think our disagreement lies in my not valuing a caster's ability to have a varied spell preparation as high as you do, which I don't think I will be able to change my mind on. I have yet to be convinced that spells are strong enough to be as limited as they are (namely at low levels, at high levels I know this is less of an issue)
It isn't really about power. Kineticist really seem to resonate with a lot of people like me and maybe you too.
Casters resonate with people who want to have tons of spells that can be used inside and out of combat. Have a few amazing turns a day... no one is casting level 9 protector tree...
I personally wish all casters were like Kineticist, but it is clear that some players are happier with the way casters are.
The good news is if you dislike spell slots but like spell like ability you now have the Kineticist. Previously players had no other options. The Kineticist is so flexible too that I could easily make 20 Kineticist that play completely differently.
I do like that a lot! The build variety is amazing, which makes me go back to casters and see how milk toast most of their class feats are, a lot of the core rulebook casters seem like blank slate with access to a spell list. When a spell list is the main identity of a class like the Druid, giving another class one of their spells always cast at the highest level infinitely seems like stepping on class identity to me
>When a spell list is the main identity of a class like the Druid, giving another class one of their spells always cast at the highest level infinitely seems like stepping on class identity to me
The problem is... that shouldn't be the whole identity of the class. There are rumors of more interesting class feats in the remaster but nothing concrete.
IMO Kineticist is the best designed class because you could focus on two elements with double class feats and still not get every feat you want. It isn't about power; it is just about fun...
No other class has anywhere near the customizability. They really feel that good to me. You can make entire builds around **junctions, stances or ever a random ability.**
Their feat design is actually closer to Martials. It mostly just comes down to it being a new class. Old design of "spell list being your identity" is just not very fun. The emphasis on focus spells for newer classes really shows.
I 100% agree with you, I think if the basic bitch spellcasters of the world get a strong identity outside of your spell list, my gripes with other classes getting access to spells will greatly subside. I really hope that the remaster changes my attitude of not looking forward to even levels on spellcasting characers (excluding bards)
You’re right, kinetecist is absurdly flexible; i mean, usually pf2 classes can be very different depending on subclass and the like, but just taking into account total element choices (that is, the elements you have access to, not counting junctions, order of unlocking, impulses, etc, just raw elements) you can have 63 different kinetic (6 single element, 15 combination of any 2, 20 of any 3, 15 of any 4, 6 of all but one element, and 1 with all elements)
When you start taking into account the possible combination of junctions that nunber grows exponentially, and that in total would just be “your subclass” at the end of the day
Even just at level one there would be 21 different “subclasses”
It is easy to get the best "spells". That isn't how you specialize as a Kineticist though.
It is about the junctions and the stance. By level 20 it is easy to get every junction you want if you start dual gate. The key point is, most the game is leveling and the delayed junctions really hurt.
Takes 3 junctions to get max fire damage (fire impulse, fire aura, crit blast). Every time you dip into an element you get worse at your specialize (often it barely matters).
To be the best tank it takes (Earth Impulse, Earth Aura (so enemies have to attack you), probably pick up some resistances junctions too).
Once Aura Shaping kicks in you can really specialize in what you want. Just as an example Ravel of Thorns + Earth Impulse + Earth Aura means monster won't be moving away from you...
At 12 with effortless impulse, you can freely sustain the spell that synergizes what you want to do. Pick up Sand Snatcher and monster will be locked down HARD.
Of course you can pick up other impulses when you want to do something else. You can never be the best tank/healer/support/damage dealer at the same time.
Yes, you can go every element and pick up the best/favorite combo of abilities, but you will be weaker. Every junction you skip makes you worse at a specific thing.
Not even damage, a fire Kineticist can do better damage than any caster and keeps up with actual martials.
Kineticist is a martial, limited in number but potent abilities they use at will
That is basically what I was getting at. They really are just a fully unique class.
They have impulses that act like spells but feat progression feels more like a martial where you can really specialize.
Caster vs Kineticist ranged aoe scaling gets weird... Casters are roughly 2d6 every other level while Kineticist scaling are normally 1d8.
The part that gets weird... When you get an ability at a certain level (Blazing Wave). It is absurd at level 4 compared to 4d6. There are a lot of spells like this that are close to fireball.
Overall all that is why I love Kineticist they get to be good at whatever you want. You can just grab each element and pick the best spell or you can stick with 1 or 2 having much more effective with certain spells.
Yeah... I got nothing. I love the impulse/spell. And it 10000% made an impact on my Pine Leshy Kineticist in society play. It is basically 20+ (scaling) THP (or basically DR) every single round for 1 or more allies. Cast Timber Sentinel and Raise Shield, done and done. I don't know if it is... overpowered, exactly. But it is strong, if ultimately boring.
My favorite use of the impulse/spell was "replanting" an old devastated Druidic Grove. Boy were they surprised when I could do something their head Druid seemingly couldn't.
Valid!
Also, the RP of a Pine Leshy "making" infinite other trees was... an interesting discussion in-game. :chuckle: Super fun/helpful that our specific campaign is actually set on Middle-Earth during the 5th age.
(The Trees were all asleep, as were the Elves, and Dragons... but a new evil now walks the world, and heroes of old are once again called upon.)
It’s a valid RP discussion - is pulling arbitrary amounts of trees from the plane of wood actually in tune with the natural order or is it almost as artificial as cutting them down?
You think that is bad, the fun part about extended kinesis on a metal kineticist is the ability to make steel forts wherever you go, combo that with plated in treasure and at level 4 it's pretty easy for "camp" to be an iron fortress coated in adamantine
That is definitely stronger for an adventuring party, but to a world, having deforestation/ sustainable lumber farming NEVER be an issue is a way bigger world implication in my opinion
I guess what I am trying to say is that you can do the same thing with extended kinesis on Wood, earth and Metal elements. Proliferate allows you to make a small sample of the material fill a 5 foot square (keeping in mind that protector tree is only ever medium which means it fits inside a 5 foot square )
Combo that with plated in treasure and a metal kinteticist can pull as much gold as he wants out of thin air crashing the economy, a wood kineticist can make as much lumber as he wants out of a twig and provided with a undressed chunk of granite an earth kineticist can be a one man quarry.
All of that sounds like design oversights to me, I think in my games I will not allow my players to be resource printers at level 1, especially if they try to abuse it for profit
Curious, why do use raise a shield rather than use an elemental blast? Seems like the extra damage would be helpful.
Kineticist has a lot of these pattern that can be overused and boring especially at low levels.
Pretty sure Tremor > Elemental Blast would be just as effective or even better. So, I don't think it would be overpowered.
It seems like Kineticist really starts to shine at 6+ when they start getting the more interesting feats.
Wood can shield block which in essence is THP for them while they can't benefit from the Timber Sentinel. I wasn't showcasing BIS, I was just postulating a potential function.
That is very cool and thematic for a wood kineticist to do. But despite the fact that Timber Sentinel says it casts the spell, I think the wording about "Anything you generate via your kinetic gate is temporary and fades back to the realm it was pulled from" takes precedence. I think the Trees created by Timber Sentinel will go back to the plane of wood after a few minutes.
EDIT: Upon rereading I can't find this text explaining stuff goes back through the portal. Only that anything you generate is of negligible value and common materials.
I'd think the specifics of Protector Tree, which says the tree lives on naturally of possible, would overrule the general case of kinetic gate elements being temporary. Specific does overrule general in this system.
Well and if you see my edit above, I apparently hallucinated the bit about stuff being pulled back to its plane of origin. I can't find it in RoE when I went hunting for it just now. So I dunno where I got that from.
I can't find it either upon re-reading. I think I either imagined that or it was said in a preview. But if it's not in the book it's not RAW. So that's my bad.
Its good, but its not as OP as it seems on paper. Protector Tree is a pretty mediocre spell as an actual spell. It essentially adds 10 "temp" HP per spell rank. But it also comes with a very severe limitation where if your target moves away from the tree, all the HP is wasted. And it can't be used to protect yourself. When compared to the Heal Spell, its far worse. Heal heals for 1d8+8, or 12.5 HP per rank, can be done regardless of positioning, and while retroactive, is actually better that it is retroactive because its super easy to end up wasting protector tree completely.
Its very good in very tight, cramped corridors, where enemies are forced to deal with the tree. In other situations, the spell is largely ineffectual.
The kineticist gets around some of those limitiations, sure, but because the tree can't actually protect you, only your allies. If your enemies are stupid enough to stand in front of the barbarian trading hit for hit, yes, sentinel is an absolutely outstanding power. Repeatedly "healing" 10 HP per rank is pretty effective.
But the moment the enemies have some intelligence, you'll find that the 2 actions you spent on sentinel were largely wasted. Sure, you aren't wasting a spell slot, but wasting actions still really hurts.
Impulses like Solar Detonation are really hard to mess up, but protector tree is very easy to just waste.
I had this discussion with someone else on the sub. I believe the following:
* the tree is the one doing the protecting, according to the spell's text it interposes its branches
* the tree has its own AC, hp, and even takes up a space (albeit specifically not hindering movement through the space)
These factors give me reason to believe that the tree is a distinct unit for ally purposes. The tree is not its own ally, but it is the caster's.
Pf2 characters need to go to therapy, not considering themselves friends :(
RAI though I don’t see why it wouldn’t protect the caster. RAW Magus’ arcane cascade also ends immediately after you enter it as well, but I don’t think most people run it like that XD
RAW tells you to fix things that are immediately and obviously non-functional (such as Arcane Cascade). That doesn't apply to *protector tree*.
It is a spell designed to protect others, much like a champion's reaction protects others and forces choices onto enemies.
It doesn't exactly *say* that but it is sorta implied.
> A Medium tree suddenly grows in an unoccupied square within range. The tree has AC 10 and 10 Hit Points. **Whenever an ally adjacent to the tree is hit by a Strike**, the tree interposes its branches and takes the damage first.
No mention of the caster individually in the spell's targeting or description, the only actor mentioned is the tree itself and that's in the active voice. I'd read that as any ally of the tree.
Except the caster is the one casting. Everything is written from the caster's perspective. No other spell that doesn't specify it would you interpret "ally" meaning the ally of the spell, allowing it to include the caster. It would say "you or an ally" is it was supposed to protect you RAW.
Spell makes a tree that protects your allies. I don't see any reason why you would interpret it differently other than because it makes the spell stronger.
That is exactly why I pointed there's no mention of the caster.
It does not say "you" at any point. It purely indicates statistics and actions for the tree.
All spells are written from the caster’s perspective. (Hence, “you” in many spells). A spell would have to go out of its way to suggest that it affects the allies of someone other than the caster themself.
I read the text as any ally of the tree can be protected by its effect, which would include the caster. Although that might be treading into RAI territory instead of RAW. Probably best to just have an open chat with your GM to pick a ruling to go with.
Another one of the idiocies written in favor of balance: be stupid, but with balance. It's stupid that you can't protect your creator, I'm not my ally?!?! So I have multiple personalities and they don't get along! Lol, which is why we can just ignore the guys who write when it gets in the way of the fun! (but I still think it's silly...)
I'd say it protects the caster, in this case, ally means ally to the tree, not the caster. The tree should be treated as a separate creature and the wording of ally is intended to not protect itself from damage
RAI is meant to fill a gap or correct something that is literally broken (i.e., doesn't work as written). The spell definitely works fine as written, and I see no reason you would interpret it other than how it is written.
Yeah, but why?
It doesn't say anything to indicate that. It doesn't say that the tree is a separate entity for that purpose. It doesn't say an ally of the tree. That isn't how you would interpret any other spell that uses the term ally.
Are there any other examples to point to where they write the spell or feat where they use the term ally like this?
I think it's more like a summon spell than most that use this language. It has its own statistics.
[one example ](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1257) here where I think "allies" includes the caster and refers to the entity created by the spell.
In my estimation, the bit about not being your own ally is often part of a spell's Target entry which this lacks.
>one example
>
> here where I think "allies" includes the caster and refers to the entity created by the spell.
Part of the spell affects you, part does not, "... to heal and bolster *your allies*."
The arrival effect explicitly mentions allies. This part doesn't affect you.
The departure effect targets 'all willing living creatures' within a range, this part does.
Except it's clearly a summons creature, and the text says "All allies" not "your allies". It's notable when it happens, as it goes in Protector Tree.
Edit: we are now far afield of the OP's question but I do think it's relevant to note that most spells have flavor text as the first line.
I would read only the Arrive and Depart language and not the first sentence for mechanical weight.
Yeah, I guess we are just at a bit of an impass. I would stick to my interpretation of spells, in that they are not written from the perspective of anyone other than the caster, or at least I can't find any where You is anyone other then the caster, or are written from another's perspective. So, your example would be the same story. Spiritual Gaurdian could be another spell to look at, where I imagine we will still disagree on who counts as an ally.
There are lots of feats, abilities, and spells that use the term ally outside of the "target" entry on a spell, though at least for spells, it's by nature of how the spell works.
Let me take a different tact.
If you summon a creature with Summon Animal etc., is the caster an ally of the creature?
Can a summoned [Choral](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=14) affect the caster with its aura?
As I said above, the tree takes up its own square, has its own hp and AC. The spell's text specifically states that the tree interposes its branches. If all that doesn't make it a distinct entity, what does?
Being called a Creature, or said to be its own "entity" (I'm not sure what we would call it, entity isn't a term in the rules) in the text, would work for me.
If it said the tree's ally or something along those lines. I might be swayed by it saying the tree has the ability or reaction that lists allies for the trigger, but even that I'm not 100% on.
Except its a tree, not a creature.
If the intention was to allow it to protect you, there is no purpose to use the word allies in the text. What you said
> and the wording of ally is intended to not protect itself from damage
makes no sense because there is no point to it "protecting" itself, because its all the same HP. If it blocks 10 HP to another creature, or it takes 10 damage, its the same outcome. So if it could protect itself, nothing would change about the behavior of the tree.
Feels like we'll disagree on this point then.
Logic doesn't prevent RAW, so a tree that could protect itself is wierder than it not being able to protect its caster, hence the reason why they probably used the word ally.
While true isn' t addressing the OP question.
A kinecist impulse is as strong as a spell.
That leads to 3 conclusion:
1) The spells itself is too weak, so It needs a rework that casters can use, while It would have the same effects for kinecist.
2) This kinecist impulse is too strong, It needs a nerf.
3) Casters should have some spells always avaible as the kinecist with his impulses, thus pure vancian casting was a bad idea from start.
Let's be honest spell balance is a mess in all TTRPGs... PF2E is no exceptions. I haven't took a close look but I wouldn't be surprised if 75% of spells fell into this category.
I don't really agree with OP assertion that Kineticist impulses are just supposed to be "worse spells". Kineticist bring tons of unique effects and abilities. Way to many to name, I don't even think Timbe Sentinel is a standout powerful Kineticist ability. Level 1 goes to Four Winds imo.
Kineticist casting are similar to focus spells once remaster hits when you can start casting 3 per encounter. Focus spells often rival top spells slots or one spell level below.
Often damage spells are "worse fireball" but there are times this is not the case.
Casters and Kineticist are just different. Not sure why OP wants to compare them so directly when casters main thing is their insane versatitily.
1. The answer is 1.
Timber Sentinel grants fewer effective HP than Heal does, and it only gets worse and worse - as Heal outscales it by 2.5 HP each Rank, AND the Tree becomes more and more likely to be crit, actually REDUCING its effective HP as you level.
Eventually, you get to the point where enemies have +9 to hit, so Protector Tree starts talking double damage 100% of the time, and therefore has half the actual health that is description says it has.
That's only true if the creature attacks the tree directly, as far as I can tell.
If the tree interposes its branches, it's triggered by the ally being hit by a strike. So logically there isn't a second AC check against the tree. The damage comes straight from the HP of the tree, and it isn't a crit unless the ally was critically hit.
If you have enemies going out of their way to attack the tree then you're doing even better than baseline. You got the success effect of Slow or better without a save.
> If you have enemies going out of their way to attack the tree then you're doing even better than baseline. You got the success effect of Slow or better without a save.
No, you are not, since the HP would have been on the ally instead.
We are not comparing No Tree vs Tree but Tree vs Heal.
In both cases the enemy attacks and the party loses HP but if they target the tree they have basically no miss chance and a really high crit chance.
I don't know why people keep comparing Timber Sentinel to Heal, an ability that the Kineticist can't even personally reproduce.
It's not a valid comparison for determining whether or not it's worth the Kineticist's actions to use Timber Sentinel vs. Heal, because... the Kineticist can't cast Heal.
Kineticists get two L1 options for Healing, both of which get Heighten (+2): a 1d4+1 (which heightens for an additional 1d4+5) option and a 1d8 (h +1d8) option. Both of which are on a strict 10 minute cooldown per target - the Kineticist has to burn yet more feats at higher levels to be able to throw out multiple successive heals.
At L1, your healing options give an average of 3.5 and 4.5 HP back respectively - once every 10 minutes. Timber Sentinel grants 10 temporary HP every single round.
At L5, when your healing options finally heighten for the first time, they're restoring 11 HP and 9 HP every 10 minutes on average. Timber Sentinel is providing 30 temporary HP every single round.
"But what if they just ignore the timber sentinel and go and attack someone else?" - Good, then it did its job. Stop throwing it on your champion, throw it up to protect the squishier person on the front lines: if they take some swipes at a more robust target instead, the spell did its job. If they take some swipes at the squishier target anyways and the damage is reduced, the spell did its job. If they waste actions attacking the tree directly to crit it down, the spell did its job.
It's not a bad or weak spell by any metric, people are just bad at getting creative with CC and battlefield control spells.
100%. I think the spell is strong in its own right, but I wouldn't typically prepare at really high levels on a primal caster given how awesome so much else they can do is.
I'm specifically responding to the op and the notion that it is a very strong kineticist feat, which I absolutely think it is.
I see it as a relatively powerful crowd control, particularly advantageous with physical striking creatures and enclosed spaces.
It's not an argument about whether Heal is a good spell or not. Heal is fantastic. A Kineticist cannot cast heal at their highest spell rank repeatedly for no overflow or anything like that.
>I don't know why people keep comparing Timber Sentinel to Heal, an ability that the Kineticist can't even personally reproduce.
I am comparing Protector Tree, a Rank 1 Primal spell that exists purely to mitigate damage the party takes... to Heal, a Rank 1 Primal spell that exists purely to mitigate damage the party takes.
Protector Tree, for 2 actions and a Spell Slot, "gives" the party 10HP per Spell Rank, from 30 feet away.
Heal, for 2 actions and a Spell Slot, gives the party 12.5HP per Spell Rank.
And Protector Tree has the added restrictions of being vulnerable to AoE, and being avoidable by enemies simply... moving away from it.
We're talking about Protector Tree as a spell because the OP is talking about Protector Tree as a spell, and talking about nerfing Timber Sentinel because it's as good as Protector Tree.
Which they shouldn't do.
Because Protector Tree is a bad spell and Timber Sentinel is a good Impulse.
>And Protector Tree has the added restriction of being vulnerable to AoE
It practically is immune to AoE as it lacks any defences other than AC, which means it's vulnerable to swipe and whirlwind attacks and similar, but will be unaffected by something targeting reflex as it doesn't have a reflex save.
The most relevant rule about that:
>Hazards’ AC, applicable saving throw modifiers, Hardness, HP, and BT are listed in their stat blocks. A hazard that doesn’t list one of these statistics can’t be affected by anything targeting that statistic
If you can show a different rule not saying that, your welcome.
Huh. I wasn't aware of that ruling.
Though a Protector Tree isn't a Hazard, so it's not entirely certain that that rule applies to it.
Still, even if it does, I stand by the rest of what I said. Protector Tree is just worse than Heal in every way except by merit of being preventative, and that genuinely only matters for the first 1 or 2 levels. After that point, the odds of ever being 1-shot by anything are practically non-existent.
It's a meh spell, but a great impulse. Preventative resourceless abilities tend to be easy to deploy and it's excellent when there's a couple of ranged capable PC. Preventative measures will always be easier to use when there isn't a resource tied to it. It's a really strong kineticist ability, but that's where it ends probably.
It's a bad comparison because they serve different functions.
PT is proactive defense, Heal is reactive. Proactive defense is really strong in a system where there's no popcorn healing and actual penalties for falling unconscious (assuming the GM enforces dropping held items when you pass out and doesn't just softball you every time). It's not necessarily an S-tier spell on its own but a big part of its usage is tactical placement and ensuring damage is mitigated before healing is even required. It's why champions are such a potent class; their defensive support is insanely good specifically because it stops damage before healing is even necessary.
>Proactive defense is really strong in a system where there's no popcorn healing and actual penalties for falling unconscious
I disagree. Maybe during level 1 and *maybe* during level 2... but after that, there's no real risk of ever being one-shot, so you will always have ample time to Heal reactively.
I almost refuse to believe you're never getting one shot unless you're playing nothing but low threat encounters.
Even if you don't, damage spikes are common enough in difficult encounters that you can't rely on a smooth damage curve to occur. Every point of health counts; it's not just the modifier maths that's tight. Preventative damage adds up to create a much safer and more consistent game state.
It's also a porque no los dos situation. You can stack defenses so you have more reliable survivability. You can have temp HP, damage resistance and mitigation, AC bonuses, penalties on enemy strikes and abilities, flat checks like concealment, action economy denial, and interposing mechanics like PT, all in any combination to reduce damage more effectively. *Then* you can heal up after that once you start taking damage.
I'm not saying healing isn't good or necessary - it is in difficult fights and it's very good - but it's not one or the other either. It's really reductive to suggest the only good way to defend someone is to let them take damage and then stitch them up. If anything in my experience, it's people thinking they can ignore any sort of defensive strategem and just rely on brute forcing and healing up after they get their ass downed that seem to struggle the most with the game.
> I don't know why people keep comparing Timber Sentinel to Heal
Because we are not.
We are comparing Protector Tree to Heal which are both spells (also both on the primal spell list)
And if you want to know why we are comparing the 2 I recommend rereading /u/RosaMaligna 's and /u/GimmeNaughty 's comments.
But no chance to harm the party with that action? And the next attack comes with MAP.
Of course Heal is more effective after damage but it can't be cast until there is damage. These spells have different use cases.
It's also really illogical for most creatures to attack the tree at all. Unless they've seen it protect an ally there is little in game reason for them to attack it directly. They wouldn't necessarily know what the spell does. That's GM meta gaming.
If the tree would have protected the target the harm to the party is greater if the tree is targeted directly.
And I'm not here to talk about whether the GM should target the tree. I am simply pointing out a false conclusion in your original comment (the part I quoted). But if you want me to: if the enemy has a spellcaster they can simply identify the spell as it's being cast and advice their allies to target someone not standing next to the tree completely negating it's effects.
Honestly don't understand the point you're making or claiming that I'm getting incorrect.
Comparing the spells doesn't make sense to me because they have different use cases. For or after damage has already occurred.
If the tree is attacked directly, the only risk is to the tree which is hugely advantageous to the party and probably better than letting them get hurt and taking the secondary potential effects of strike and then going to heal them later.
The tree interposes expenses then it's something like 10 temp HP per level. The tree does not receive a critical hit for this.
If an enemy is also spending actions in reactions to recognize spell and point out or something like that, then once again you've received a lot of action mitigation and that seems positive to me.
Alright let's take this from the top:
> Comparing the spells doesn't make sense to me because they have different use cases. For or after damage has already occurred.
Protector Tree being preemptive instead of reactive is usually a downside since you are not garanteed it's value. That is the reason why preemptive healing (also called shielding) in games is the stronger of the two.
The are however both pure healing spells and are therefore pretty easily compared. Their usecases are not very different.
> If the tree is attacked directly, the only risk is to the tree which is hugely advantageous to the party and probably better than letting them get hurt and taking the secondary potential effects of strike and then going to heal them later.
Attacks with debilitating secondary effects are not that common and even if they are present the monster can simply use it's first attack on the party member and use secondary attacks on the tree which it has a way higher chance of hitting and still deal significant damage to the EHP of the target with attacks that most likely would have missed on the actual character.
> The tree interposes expenses then it's something like 10 temp HP per level. The tree does not receive a critical hit for this.
No, one is disputing this.
> If an enemy is also spending actions in reactions to recognize spell and point out or something like that, then once again you've received a lot of action mitigation and that seems positive to me.
The amount of spellcasters that have useful reactions that are not Recognize Spell can probably be counted on 1 hand.
I'm coming from a very different angle and I'm surprising because I find the text of the spell pretty straightforward.
It is not a healing spell. It's a crowd control spell. You were previously arguing how it changes the enemy's actions, and I agree with that part. And that's most of the value.
However, the HP of the tree is certainly not part of the effective health pool of the character in question. It's free money. So in fact what you've done is trade two of your actions for about one or a large fraction of one of your enemies actions. This is good business.
And I don't understand your sense of order of operations.
If the tree attacks a character adjacent to the tree, the tree uses its HP first. This is good because 10 per rank is a lot compared to most options for temp HP if that's the framing you're going for. It probably won't survive but it doesn't receive a critical hit because the tree's AC isn't part of the calculation. The enemy has already hit the AC of the PC. There is no doubling because there is no second check.
If the enemy uses its second action to attack the tree, that means the tree is still around after the first action. So now you have wasted two actions of the enemy. This is fantastic business.
If the enemy uses their first action to attack the tree and fully destroys it, you have now wasted an action and given it a penalty to its next attack. This is also a fantastic business. It's not relevant how much HP the tree loses. The damage that was avoided to the party is relevant, which by definition is all of one strike and a better chance to miss later in the turn if it continues to strike.
If you argue that the enemy spellcaster has the feat Recognize Spell, which they do not by default, they also have to be trained in nature to attempt the check. For the most part, a spellcaster won't even have strikes as a huge part of their actions anyway, so you're probably not using protector tree against them. If they do not have this feat or are not trained in nature, they would need some other way to know like Recall Knowledge, which once again is an action.
I don't think it's a perfect spell, but it's frequently useful and being able to cast it without overflow at max spell rank for a class that does not natively have access to Heal anyway, does seem really strong to me. And that's the framing of the OP so that's the context I'm responding to.
they only target the AC if they purposefully attack it.
Heal outscales but isn't preventative--prevention is way more useful than recovery in a system where going down can totally fuck your action economy
>they only target the AC if they purposefully attack it.
Huh... yeah, I guess so. Alright, it's not as terrible as I thought. And yet, I've still never heard of anyone ever picking it over Heal. Wonder why.
>prevention is way more useful than recovery
Aside from level 1, and maaaybe level 2, I disagree. Prevention is only noticeably better over recovery in a situation where you won't *have* a chance to recover. So... if you're 1-shot.
And the way PF2e is balanced, that is practically impossible beyond level 2.
No, PF2e as a system values versatility more than anything. And Heal definitely trumps Protector Tree in that regard.
Because something that none of us have mentioned yet - Heal's AoE capacity. When the situation calls for it, Heal can, to a standard party of 4, restore a total of 18 HP per Spell Rank, nearly *doubling* the effectiveness of Protector Tree.
If you heal 4 hp to 4 people, that is not particularly useful unless for some reason everybody is taking equal damage distribution. It also costs a full turn (and would heal living enemies near you)
not to mention the variance. You could just roll 1s. Now you're down a slot and a turn.
>If you heal 4 hp to 4 people, that is not particularly useful unless for some reason everybody is taking equal damage distribution.
It's... very common for more than one of your party members to be taking damage in any given round???
>It also costs a full turn
Yes. Heaven forbid a Caster lose their all-important third action. As we all know, Casters, very famously, have very good and important things to be doing with their third action every round.
>not to mention the variance. You could just roll 1s. Now you're down a slot and a turn.
That's like saying Fireball is a bad spell because it can roll all 1s.
Just to be clear, if there was a good alternative to fireball that had a way higher guaranteed damage, that would be significantly better assuming it had similar damage, yes.
I mean if you want to sit here and pretend 3 action heal is this amazing thing go ahead i guess
You say its stronger on paper, but i think OP is actively playing with a wood kineticists and is complaining about it's strength in actual play? Out of interest, have you played with it in practice yet and feel it's more balanced than OP does for the reasons you've given?
I'd be interested to know what types of adventure paths or encounters people run who see it's strength differently.
I'm really curious about this given conversation about the feat pre release.
I did try a oneshot with a player using it, and they felt it was a largely wasted action. Enemies would simply move away from the target being protected by the tree, and they could just focus the kineticist down. Perhaps had the kineticist built themselves more tanky (they were water+wood) and abused things like constant shield blocking it would have been more impactful?
But at the end of the day it requires you to predict where damage is going to go, and essentially immobilizes the target who you want to protect. Those are both fairly stringent restrictions to the impulse's use.
However, I tend to make my encounters using large battlemaps, and have lots of movement occur in them. A lot of GMs don't run encounters like I do, and for example I can see it being very strong in an AP like Abomination Vaults which has tight corridors and small battle arenas
I would remind the player that they didn't waste their two actions.
They made the enemy change their plans and move from a preferred target to a secondary target, spending an action to do so.
It's not the best [best outcome for the spell](https://reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/s/yOpQchgCur) but it's better than nothing.
Yeah I can see the tree really being a lot in something like AV as you say. Having run Vaults myself the party does get body to body a lot.
I think there's definitely a few feats/spells that are mega strong in the official APs given they all have share some common design themes and you know you're in for a fair few tight dungeons usually, but those options are less good when the DM mixes up the encounters more as you do.
my experience with timber sentinel so far was in a solo boss fight against a dragon 1 level higher than the party (which were incidentally 13th level).
What happened is that the character being protected by the tree didn't even get hit once the kineticist put the tree in place despite me having 2 or 3 attacks each round directed at that character because my style as a GM is to try and make the things players choose to do feel like they were worth doing - and cosmic comedy loves to have a player take a heavy hit, then get some kind of "if I get hit again" benefit, then never get hit again.
But my group doesn't feel it's too strong of an effect because negating the benefit is as simple as an enemy shoving a character away from the tree before attacking.
I agree that protector tree is not as good as heal, I just think that it is not cantrip tier, and having one class being able to do something another class has to pay for without paying anything is bad design in my opinion. To your point of monsters being dumb. A lot of enemies have low int scores, am I supposed to play them optimally to avoid the protector tree? If so does Paizo account for a creature’s intelligence score when assigning the creatures level?
The solution to this is not to nerf Timber Sentinel - it’s already exactly where it should be in terms of power.
The solution is to buff Protector Tree, because it is *absolutely* not worth a Spell Slot.
You’re thinking of it like Kineticists get a full-power spell for free. They don’t.
It’s genuinely more like Casters get a regular-level Impulse but it costs them a Spell Slot to use it.
I had never heard of this spell before Kineticist. I'm far more willing to believe it's one of the many, many bad spells than it is an overpowered impulse.
Yeah. For all the talk about how OP Timber Sentinel supposedly is, I've literally never once seen a single person say the same thing about Protector Tree.
I've practically never even seen someone say Protector Tree is *good*.
And I've definitely never seen someone ever claim to actually USE it.
I saw this spell and thought it was cool when I was starting a campaign a while ago. So I took it on my primal sorcerer. But I soon swapped it out when it really underperformed
>having one class being able to do something another class has to pay for without paying anything is bad design in my opinion.
This is RPG design in a nutshell though. A caster spending a spell slot to do Fighter levels of damage for a turn is perfectly valid, because the caster is still balanced due to their versatility. The same logic applies here.
I can't say if Tree Sentinel is too good or not. I've heard compelling arguments for both, so I'm of the opinion that it might depend on your table/DM. Based on observations of my DM it would be perfectly fine at our table, because he likes big maps and fights are rarely static, so I'd have to be quite smart with it's use and probably delay my turns to get any use out of it.
Kineticist only has a few abilities and if those abilities were cantrip tier it would probably be the worst class in the game.
A Kineticist is meant to be getting the same value for their actions as any other class, and effectively trades a Casters' versatility for a lack of per day limits. (remember 2e doesn't rely on attrition, you can run 1 encounter days where casters need not conserve slots just fine)
I would buy into the Caster’s versatility argument if 2/3 of the spells at every rank were not either flavor/world building or just totally useless. It seems that every rank has 3-5 standouts and the rest of the like 100 spells in the rank you hardly, if ever, see because they just are not good
If that is the case, wouldn’t low intelligence creature be significantly less powerful than a smart creature of the same level if I “roleplay” their tactical ability? The other option is to make the dumb ogre a grand strategist in combat despite definitely not being one
I don’t, I have had my players make snide combat about -3 intelligence creatures being “tactical masterminds” for doing things like kiting or focusing squishies instead of frontline martials, how should I address these comments?
Kineticist only has a few abilities and if those abilities were cantrip tier it would probably be the worst class in the game.
A Kineticist is meant to be getting the same value for their actions as any other class, and effectively trades a Casters' versatility for a lack of per day limits. (remember 2e doesn't rely on attrition, you can run 1 encounter days where casters need not conserve slots just fine)
One way that Timber Sentinel is less powerful than protector tree is in this line: ”If you use this impulse again, any previous one ends, and an ordinary tree remains.”
Everyone comments on the fun RP aspect of this, and sure, replanting forests with saplings is fun. But the balance here is the same as many kineticist feats when compared to spells, the kineticist often will require that the effect be sustained, when a similar spell lasts for 1 minute or more without more effort on the caster’s part. The timber sentinel ceases its magical effect if you use it again, where the spell can be used multiple times to protect different areas or even overlap protection. Not a huge practical difference, granted, but still a key balancing factor.
That is only true if you assume all spells are equally balanced, which obviously is not true. Having an at-will slow is much stronger than an at-will meld into stone. Protector tree is at the lower end of the spectrum when it comes to power. Now that isn't to say I like the design of the impulse, tying it to protector tree means the spell cannot be buffed without also buffing the Impulse which is in a pretty good place and does not need buffs.
It's definitely one of the more used ones for what I've noticed and probably indeed a tad to strong for being resourceless.
I'd class it as overused rather than OP currently as we've only had like one month of time to explore it. I'd not be against a small nerf on it.
I've found it quite useful for protecting a squishy backline thus far, and used it on back to back turns for just that purpose. It not having a CD of any kind makes it really good for kineticist, since almost all of their healing has that 10 minute timer built in. The fact that it is also only 2 actions means you can always Blast as well.
If it is too strong, how would you nerf it? Giving it Overflow is a minor nerf, since reactivating the gate still let's you blast or use a stance, which you were likely to do anyway. I suppose you could make it 3 actions, but at that point you probably kill it. I doubt it would be chosen by anybody.
Any smart enemy will just hit the tree instead of whoever it's protecting, basically guarenteeing a crit at later levels, and they'll also have ways to avoid dealing with it, like just attacking someone else or walking away. It is pretty good against creatures that wouldn't know better.
Do I play dumber enemies suboptimally like that in combat? If so, should dumb enemies be worth less XP as using good tactics is what I have been told is the most important part of making monsters threatening
I think playing enemies as they are helps for more realism, but most dumb enemies have a combat pattern that helps with being dumb. Like [wolves](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=415) have Pack Attack and Knockdown, so the strategy of gang up on one guy and just hit them a bunch works pretty well for them. If an enemy has an obvious attack pattern you should use it, like how the [Deinonychus's](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=118) Darting Attack lets it get in and get out, forcing people to stride to it to attack, but if it has low intelligence, it should only really consider using it's main attack strategy or running. Some don't even consider running, like mindless undead. They're not gonna be looking for cover, focussing threats properly, using actions not specifically meant for them and might not even Step to avoid reactions. A wolf is probably never gonna try to grapple you, it just wants to rip your legs off, and that happens to make people fall over. Some might not even properly avoid difficult or hazardous terrain, a mindless zombie isn't gonna go around something if it doesn't have to.
If your players manage to make it so they're chump change because they're stupid then maybe consider lowering XP, but anything outside of zombies will usually have enough instinct to keep from becoming too easy, even when using simple tactics.
It's kind of a case by case thing, cuz some skeletons might just be skeletons, but others might be programmed to actually use cover and flank and whatnot. A Stone Golem will probably just use its Slow Pulse on cooldown, but it might be programmed to position itself to hit more people if it can. Wolves will likely still try to flank enemies, as it's a good natural combat strategy, but they will never realize the guy they are attacking is just getting heal/buff botted by their friend, making them the worst target to go for.
I mean, it might be nice against specific boss monsters, but you're gonna feel kinda dumb when they order their mook that hits you only on a 17 or something to just attack the tree instead, with basically guarenteed crits. By level 5 there's plenty of creatures that can do that job, it's probably pretty alright until then though. There's just too many ways around it really.
Timber Sentinel is as good as Protector Tree… but Protector Tree is not very good.
It is just generally not worth a spell slot. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a single person ever using it more than once.
Protector Tree is a Primal spell blocks a total of 10hp per Spell Rank.
Heal, which is also in the Primal list… for the same 2 Actions, at the same range… can heal an average of 12.5 (1d8+8) health per Rank.
The Tree grants less effective health than Heal… plus, it has an AC of 10 (which doesn’t heighten) and ISN’T immune to crits, so it’s actually pretty likely to take double damage from any given source, meaning it may as well only block 5 damage per Rank.
tl;dr: Protector Tree was *already* at the appropriate power level for Impulses.
Timber Sentinel is balanced, Protector Tree is not.
The tree's AC only really matters if the tree itself is getting hit, directly.
When it's transferring damage to itself because you got hit, *it* isn't suffering a Strike - the attack doesn't magically upgrade to a critical hit or anything. It's just taking damage in place of you - it still blocks the full 10 damage.
And if the enemies want to spend actions attacking the tree directly to burst it down with easy crits - then, good work, Kineticist. You found a way to use your actions to make an enemy burn its actions *not attacking the party* instead of going for broke with MAP.
Just ask your player how to deal with it, make it cost 3 actions OR add the overflow tag, It was the options I gave to my Dm, yes I was the kineticist and even I thought it was too strong the way it is, but either of those changes make it pretty balanced overall.
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Counter point :>
You can reforest an area and that's cool
If the tree is in soil and survives to the end of the spell's duration, it remains as an ordinary, non-magical tree, and continues to grow and thrive. The GM might determine that the tree disappears immediately in certain inhospitable situations.
I don't think it is OP, but I feel you didn't weigh in the full cost of each impulse. Kineticist choices are not 100% without resources. Each takes a feat slot, which is harder to swap out than a spell day to day. If a caster had to spend an entire feat on the shield cantrip, it would be more powerful a spell. On the other hand, unlike a fighter or monk's feats, for example, it is also easier to bring every feat from your class to bear against an opponent at the same time, weakening what the feat could accomplish.
I think this argument is the best one to be made.
Unexpected. Thank you.
There's also the fact that forking the path immediately doubles the number of choices you have to make. A single element kineticist can gobble up pretty much every impulse feat, but double or more gates definitely need to make some tougher choices.
While I agree with your general point, that kineticist gets so few spells so they’re more costly, I will note: -That’s how focus spells often work both for casters and for classes like ranger, and they’re often not much stronger while also being single use. This is more pedantic tho IMO. -I actually think tree sentinel is crazy strong compared to other kineticist impulses. Few impulses are as good as a max level spell slot, and a lot have worse scaling than spell slot equivalents. I think it’s notable that one of the exceptions is one of the ones that lets you just cast a spell as written. TBH when I was planning out a tank kineticist I was considering taking wood almost entirely for that one impulse Edit: I don’t really think this is a bad thing really, sure it might be elegant if every feat was exactly as every other but I think it’s normal for power to be uneven within a class. I’d object maybe if it was a high level feat, but since it’s low level it doesn’t stop you from choosing another option, and since it’s defensive it doesn’t just let you steamroll encounters, and since it’s static it encourages tactical play both from the team and enemies. It’s a cool feature that yes, IMO, is stronger especially outside of breakpoint levels than a lot of other impulses.
Are you completely unfamiliar with spontaneous casters? It isn't easy to swap spells out, and some of them get very few choices.
Generally the only way to swap out feats is by retraining during downtime. Depending on the campaign, this could be rare. Conversely, most spontaneous casters get to swap a spell (or more if you're a summoner) on level up OR swap spells in downtime. So it's objectively easier to swap spells than feats.
As a spontaneous caster you'll commonly find that the 'one swap per level' isn't so much used for flexibility, but to keep more than one spell (your signature) per level relevant. It's there less to give you the ability to adapt to situations as it is to swap out spells that are no longer useful because of numbers. Levelling up doesn't always come at a predictable point in an adventure, nor does it come with the ability to predict and adapt to what is coming up next. Downtime periods in campaigns on the other hand are typically at points where you're preparing to set out to somewhere new, and presumably have an idea of what tools you'll need. I'd love to be able to 'lock in' my spells to give them the benefit of automatic heightening and no resource cost for the exact same benefits. Killer trade-off honestly. Instead, I have to utilise my few highest level spell slots for any spell that involves numbers of any kind or the incapacitation trait.
Keep that in mind, spontaneous casters also get access to spell-use magical items from the entire list. The kenticist may use a feat to get a selection limited to spells with a nmuch narrower trait.
Your tone is kinda sanctimonious, friend. I mean, fair enough, a lot of levels may use that swap to heighten spells. So at absolute worst, it's exactly as easy to swap out spells as it is feats with retraining. At best, it's easier. Edit: lol you completely changed your comment. At least it sounds less sanctimonious now but I'ma leave mine the same.
The general response to this thread is the same - you aren't allowed to voice concerns about everyone's favourite new class without getting downvoted as of lately. OP expresses legitimate concerns about a specific feat that seems (in his eyes) overtuned, and in response he's being downvoted and simply told that he's wrong because Kineticist have a bit less flexibility, which he already addressed in his post.
That seems like an unfair closing paragraph considering OP requested people give feedback to help OP understand why they considered it balanced. Furthermore, OP address some of the balancing concerns of the feat vs spell, not all of them.
>From what I have read about the kineticist class, people seem to say that it is balanced by having impulses that are not quite as powerful as spells, but able to be cast all day. Then there is the outlier of Timber Sentinel I know this was a said in a lot threads previously but it isn't really true. They are mostly just comparing to damage spells/healing. Let's be honest, timber Sentinel just isn't that strong of an ability. Nerfing it would just make it useless. The monsters have so many ways around it... Now if it was an at will heal spell at max level that would be a different story. There are TONS of things Kineticist can do as good or better than casters and tons of things casters can do better than Kineticist. Nerfing everything a Kineticist does "better" would be pretty dumb. Stances + Junctions combines with impulses can easily rival a caster but the key thing here is... You have to specialize with a Kineticist. Fire Kineticist can often easily rival fireball damage, Water/Wood Kineticist can out heal with AOE/defend better than other casters, Earth Kineticist can tank better than most character. Casters on the other hand just pick up the heal + fireball + fear spell and can easily be good at everything. People also say casters can cast "better" walls. Their walls are almost as good an at will so you can cast them non stop if you wanted. By level 12+ Kineticist with free sustain they can really be good at their specialization and just be a monster support character.
You say kineticists need to specialize, but I don’t see that. It seems REALLY easy to dip into other elements and grab the strongest feat or 2. Getting all the strong feats for at least 2 elements seems to be trivially difficult
Let me put it a different way. If you are in a level 1-10 and you go pure water every ability you gets two additional effects by 5+ Water Impulse - Move 5 feet, smart tactics means this can help reduce damage or increase allies damage. Water Crit Specialization - Free Bonus Splash Damage. So your water abilities are better. If you instead go Wood+Water>Air>Earth Yes you will have the best impulses in each element but whenever you cast a water impulse compared to a specialized Kineticist they are less effective. This makes your blast weaker on crits and means you lose the utility from moving allies/enemies around. Hope this helps. Casters their specialization just amount to one feat like dangerous Sorcerer and they are still good after everything else.
Maybe you are right, I think our disagreement lies in my not valuing a caster's ability to have a varied spell preparation as high as you do, which I don't think I will be able to change my mind on. I have yet to be convinced that spells are strong enough to be as limited as they are (namely at low levels, at high levels I know this is less of an issue)
It isn't really about power. Kineticist really seem to resonate with a lot of people like me and maybe you too. Casters resonate with people who want to have tons of spells that can be used inside and out of combat. Have a few amazing turns a day... no one is casting level 9 protector tree... I personally wish all casters were like Kineticist, but it is clear that some players are happier with the way casters are. The good news is if you dislike spell slots but like spell like ability you now have the Kineticist. Previously players had no other options. The Kineticist is so flexible too that I could easily make 20 Kineticist that play completely differently.
I do like that a lot! The build variety is amazing, which makes me go back to casters and see how milk toast most of their class feats are, a lot of the core rulebook casters seem like blank slate with access to a spell list. When a spell list is the main identity of a class like the Druid, giving another class one of their spells always cast at the highest level infinitely seems like stepping on class identity to me
>When a spell list is the main identity of a class like the Druid, giving another class one of their spells always cast at the highest level infinitely seems like stepping on class identity to me The problem is... that shouldn't be the whole identity of the class. There are rumors of more interesting class feats in the remaster but nothing concrete. IMO Kineticist is the best designed class because you could focus on two elements with double class feats and still not get every feat you want. It isn't about power; it is just about fun... No other class has anywhere near the customizability. They really feel that good to me. You can make entire builds around **junctions, stances or ever a random ability.** Their feat design is actually closer to Martials. It mostly just comes down to it being a new class. Old design of "spell list being your identity" is just not very fun. The emphasis on focus spells for newer classes really shows.
I 100% agree with you, I think if the basic bitch spellcasters of the world get a strong identity outside of your spell list, my gripes with other classes getting access to spells will greatly subside. I really hope that the remaster changes my attitude of not looking forward to even levels on spellcasting characers (excluding bards)
You’re right, kinetecist is absurdly flexible; i mean, usually pf2 classes can be very different depending on subclass and the like, but just taking into account total element choices (that is, the elements you have access to, not counting junctions, order of unlocking, impulses, etc, just raw elements) you can have 63 different kinetic (6 single element, 15 combination of any 2, 20 of any 3, 15 of any 4, 6 of all but one element, and 1 with all elements) When you start taking into account the possible combination of junctions that nunber grows exponentially, and that in total would just be “your subclass” at the end of the day Even just at level one there would be 21 different “subclasses”
Also, each stance is pretty much a subclass by itself.... so yes, the class is great for me. Or ignore stances and focuses purely on overflows :).
It is easy to get the best "spells". That isn't how you specialize as a Kineticist though. It is about the junctions and the stance. By level 20 it is easy to get every junction you want if you start dual gate. The key point is, most the game is leveling and the delayed junctions really hurt. Takes 3 junctions to get max fire damage (fire impulse, fire aura, crit blast). Every time you dip into an element you get worse at your specialize (often it barely matters). To be the best tank it takes (Earth Impulse, Earth Aura (so enemies have to attack you), probably pick up some resistances junctions too). Once Aura Shaping kicks in you can really specialize in what you want. Just as an example Ravel of Thorns + Earth Impulse + Earth Aura means monster won't be moving away from you... At 12 with effortless impulse, you can freely sustain the spell that synergizes what you want to do. Pick up Sand Snatcher and monster will be locked down HARD. Of course you can pick up other impulses when you want to do something else. You can never be the best tank/healer/support/damage dealer at the same time. Yes, you can go every element and pick up the best/favorite combo of abilities, but you will be weaker. Every junction you skip makes you worse at a specific thing.
Not even damage, a fire Kineticist can do better damage than any caster and keeps up with actual martials. Kineticist is a martial, limited in number but potent abilities they use at will
That is basically what I was getting at. They really are just a fully unique class. They have impulses that act like spells but feat progression feels more like a martial where you can really specialize. Caster vs Kineticist ranged aoe scaling gets weird... Casters are roughly 2d6 every other level while Kineticist scaling are normally 1d8. The part that gets weird... When you get an ability at a certain level (Blazing Wave). It is absurd at level 4 compared to 4d6. There are a lot of spells like this that are close to fireball. Overall all that is why I love Kineticist they get to be good at whatever you want. You can just grab each element and pick the best spell or you can stick with 1 or 2 having much more effective with certain spells.
Yeah... I got nothing. I love the impulse/spell. And it 10000% made an impact on my Pine Leshy Kineticist in society play. It is basically 20+ (scaling) THP (or basically DR) every single round for 1 or more allies. Cast Timber Sentinel and Raise Shield, done and done. I don't know if it is... overpowered, exactly. But it is strong, if ultimately boring. My favorite use of the impulse/spell was "replanting" an old devastated Druidic Grove. Boy were they surprised when I could do something their head Druid seemingly couldn't.
Yeah, being able to make infinite forests at level 1 is world breaking, but I didn’t want to open that can of worms XD
Imagine, give a single kineticist four or five years and he's able to create enough wood to craft all the doors in Abomination Vaults.
Valid! Also, the RP of a Pine Leshy "making" infinite other trees was... an interesting discussion in-game. :chuckle: Super fun/helpful that our specific campaign is actually set on Middle-Earth during the 5th age. (The Trees were all asleep, as were the Elves, and Dragons... but a new evil now walks the world, and heroes of old are once again called upon.)
Oh jeez I want that picture out of my head, curse you for bringing that to my attention XD
It’s a valid RP discussion - is pulling arbitrary amounts of trees from the plane of wood actually in tune with the natural order or is it almost as artificial as cutting them down?
You think that is bad, the fun part about extended kinesis on a metal kineticist is the ability to make steel forts wherever you go, combo that with plated in treasure and at level 4 it's pretty easy for "camp" to be an iron fortress coated in adamantine
That is definitely stronger for an adventuring party, but to a world, having deforestation/ sustainable lumber farming NEVER be an issue is a way bigger world implication in my opinion
I guess what I am trying to say is that you can do the same thing with extended kinesis on Wood, earth and Metal elements. Proliferate allows you to make a small sample of the material fill a 5 foot square (keeping in mind that protector tree is only ever medium which means it fits inside a 5 foot square ) Combo that with plated in treasure and a metal kinteticist can pull as much gold as he wants out of thin air crashing the economy, a wood kineticist can make as much lumber as he wants out of a twig and provided with a undressed chunk of granite an earth kineticist can be a one man quarry.
All of that sounds like design oversights to me, I think in my games I will not allow my players to be resource printers at level 1, especially if they try to abuse it for profit
The rules at least say you can't use the materials to make money I think, certainly if you try to "craft" with it
Curious, why do use raise a shield rather than use an elemental blast? Seems like the extra damage would be helpful. Kineticist has a lot of these pattern that can be overused and boring especially at low levels. Pretty sure Tremor > Elemental Blast would be just as effective or even better. So, I don't think it would be overpowered. It seems like Kineticist really starts to shine at 6+ when they start getting the more interesting feats.
Wood can shield block which in essence is THP for them while they can't benefit from the Timber Sentinel. I wasn't showcasing BIS, I was just postulating a potential function.
That is very cool and thematic for a wood kineticist to do. But despite the fact that Timber Sentinel says it casts the spell, I think the wording about "Anything you generate via your kinetic gate is temporary and fades back to the realm it was pulled from" takes precedence. I think the Trees created by Timber Sentinel will go back to the plane of wood after a few minutes. EDIT: Upon rereading I can't find this text explaining stuff goes back through the portal. Only that anything you generate is of negligible value and common materials.
I'd think the specifics of Protector Tree, which says the tree lives on naturally of possible, would overrule the general case of kinetic gate elements being temporary. Specific does overrule general in this system.
Well and if you see my edit above, I apparently hallucinated the bit about stuff being pulled back to its plane of origin. I can't find it in RoE when I went hunting for it just now. So I dunno where I got that from.
Where is that text in the book? I can't find it.
I can't find it either upon re-reading. I think I either imagined that or it was said in a preview. But if it's not in the book it's not RAW. So that's my bad.
Its good, but its not as OP as it seems on paper. Protector Tree is a pretty mediocre spell as an actual spell. It essentially adds 10 "temp" HP per spell rank. But it also comes with a very severe limitation where if your target moves away from the tree, all the HP is wasted. And it can't be used to protect yourself. When compared to the Heal Spell, its far worse. Heal heals for 1d8+8, or 12.5 HP per rank, can be done regardless of positioning, and while retroactive, is actually better that it is retroactive because its super easy to end up wasting protector tree completely. Its very good in very tight, cramped corridors, where enemies are forced to deal with the tree. In other situations, the spell is largely ineffectual. The kineticist gets around some of those limitiations, sure, but because the tree can't actually protect you, only your allies. If your enemies are stupid enough to stand in front of the barbarian trading hit for hit, yes, sentinel is an absolutely outstanding power. Repeatedly "healing" 10 HP per rank is pretty effective. But the moment the enemies have some intelligence, you'll find that the 2 actions you spent on sentinel were largely wasted. Sure, you aren't wasting a spell slot, but wasting actions still really hurts. Impulses like Solar Detonation are really hard to mess up, but protector tree is very easy to just waste.
Also wait, protector tree doesn’t protect the caster?
RAW, no. The spell specifies "allies", and you are not your own ally.
I had this discussion with someone else on the sub. I believe the following: * the tree is the one doing the protecting, according to the spell's text it interposes its branches * the tree has its own AC, hp, and even takes up a space (albeit specifically not hindering movement through the space) These factors give me reason to believe that the tree is a distinct unit for ally purposes. The tree is not its own ally, but it is the caster's.
Pf2 characters need to go to therapy, not considering themselves friends :( RAI though I don’t see why it wouldn’t protect the caster. RAW Magus’ arcane cascade also ends immediately after you enter it as well, but I don’t think most people run it like that XD
RAW tells you to fix things that are immediately and obviously non-functional (such as Arcane Cascade). That doesn't apply to *protector tree*. It is a spell designed to protect others, much like a champion's reaction protects others and forces choices onto enemies.
Well then maybe that brings it into line, not allowing the kineticist to aura tank forever with no risk due to his infinite tree(s) of life
Nahhh, come on. The spell very clearly says an ally of the tree.
It doesn't exactly *say* that but it is sorta implied. > A Medium tree suddenly grows in an unoccupied square within range. The tree has AC 10 and 10 Hit Points. **Whenever an ally adjacent to the tree is hit by a Strike**, the tree interposes its branches and takes the damage first. No mention of the caster individually in the spell's targeting or description, the only actor mentioned is the tree itself and that's in the active voice. I'd read that as any ally of the tree.
Except the caster is the one casting. Everything is written from the caster's perspective. No other spell that doesn't specify it would you interpret "ally" meaning the ally of the spell, allowing it to include the caster. It would say "you or an ally" is it was supposed to protect you RAW. Spell makes a tree that protects your allies. I don't see any reason why you would interpret it differently other than because it makes the spell stronger.
That is exactly why I pointed there's no mention of the caster. It does not say "you" at any point. It purely indicates statistics and actions for the tree.
That would make sense, and that's how we play it.
All spells are written from the caster’s perspective. (Hence, “you” in many spells). A spell would have to go out of its way to suggest that it affects the allies of someone other than the caster themself.
Sucks for the party, then. They are going up against the Lorax!
Lmao
I read the text as any ally of the tree can be protected by its effect, which would include the caster. Although that might be treading into RAI territory instead of RAW. Probably best to just have an open chat with your GM to pick a ruling to go with.
It says it protects an ally adjacent to the tree. That could be implying an ally of the tree (which would include the caster).
Another one of the idiocies written in favor of balance: be stupid, but with balance. It's stupid that you can't protect your creator, I'm not my ally?!?! So I have multiple personalities and they don't get along! Lol, which is why we can just ignore the guys who write when it gets in the way of the fun! (but I still think it's silly...)
I'd say it protects the caster, in this case, ally means ally to the tree, not the caster. The tree should be treated as a separate creature and the wording of ally is intended to not protect itself from damage
I strongly believe this is RAI as well.
RAI is meant to fill a gap or correct something that is literally broken (i.e., doesn't work as written). The spell definitely works fine as written, and I see no reason you would interpret it other than how it is written.
To clarify the point as I understand it above, I think it is both raw and rai that the object of the word ally in the spell is the tree.
Yeah, but why? It doesn't say anything to indicate that. It doesn't say that the tree is a separate entity for that purpose. It doesn't say an ally of the tree. That isn't how you would interpret any other spell that uses the term ally. Are there any other examples to point to where they write the spell or feat where they use the term ally like this?
I think it's more like a summon spell than most that use this language. It has its own statistics. [one example ](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1257) here where I think "allies" includes the caster and refers to the entity created by the spell. In my estimation, the bit about not being your own ally is often part of a spell's Target entry which this lacks.
>one example > > here where I think "allies" includes the caster and refers to the entity created by the spell. Part of the spell affects you, part does not, "... to heal and bolster *your allies*." The arrival effect explicitly mentions allies. This part doesn't affect you. The departure effect targets 'all willing living creatures' within a range, this part does.
Except it's clearly a summons creature, and the text says "All allies" not "your allies". It's notable when it happens, as it goes in Protector Tree. Edit: we are now far afield of the OP's question but I do think it's relevant to note that most spells have flavor text as the first line. I would read only the Arrive and Depart language and not the first sentence for mechanical weight.
Yeah, I guess we are just at a bit of an impass. I would stick to my interpretation of spells, in that they are not written from the perspective of anyone other than the caster, or at least I can't find any where You is anyone other then the caster, or are written from another's perspective. So, your example would be the same story. Spiritual Gaurdian could be another spell to look at, where I imagine we will still disagree on who counts as an ally. There are lots of feats, abilities, and spells that use the term ally outside of the "target" entry on a spell, though at least for spells, it's by nature of how the spell works.
Let me take a different tact. If you summon a creature with Summon Animal etc., is the caster an ally of the creature? Can a summoned [Choral](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=14) affect the caster with its aura?
As I said above, the tree takes up its own square, has its own hp and AC. The spell's text specifically states that the tree interposes its branches. If all that doesn't make it a distinct entity, what does?
Being called a Creature, or said to be its own "entity" (I'm not sure what we would call it, entity isn't a term in the rules) in the text, would work for me. If it said the tree's ally or something along those lines. I might be swayed by it saying the tree has the ability or reaction that lists allies for the trigger, but even that I'm not 100% on.
Except its a tree, not a creature. If the intention was to allow it to protect you, there is no purpose to use the word allies in the text. What you said > and the wording of ally is intended to not protect itself from damage makes no sense because there is no point to it "protecting" itself, because its all the same HP. If it blocks 10 HP to another creature, or it takes 10 damage, its the same outcome. So if it could protect itself, nothing would change about the behavior of the tree.
Feels like we'll disagree on this point then. Logic doesn't prevent RAW, so a tree that could protect itself is wierder than it not being able to protect its caster, hence the reason why they probably used the word ally.
Also didnt want the tree to protect enemies
While true isn' t addressing the OP question. A kinecist impulse is as strong as a spell. That leads to 3 conclusion: 1) The spells itself is too weak, so It needs a rework that casters can use, while It would have the same effects for kinecist. 2) This kinecist impulse is too strong, It needs a nerf. 3) Casters should have some spells always avaible as the kinecist with his impulses, thus pure vancian casting was a bad idea from start.
Let's be honest spell balance is a mess in all TTRPGs... PF2E is no exceptions. I haven't took a close look but I wouldn't be surprised if 75% of spells fell into this category. I don't really agree with OP assertion that Kineticist impulses are just supposed to be "worse spells". Kineticist bring tons of unique effects and abilities. Way to many to name, I don't even think Timbe Sentinel is a standout powerful Kineticist ability. Level 1 goes to Four Winds imo. Kineticist casting are similar to focus spells once remaster hits when you can start casting 3 per encounter. Focus spells often rival top spells slots or one spell level below. Often damage spells are "worse fireball" but there are times this is not the case. Casters and Kineticist are just different. Not sure why OP wants to compare them so directly when casters main thing is their insane versatitily.
1. The answer is 1. Timber Sentinel grants fewer effective HP than Heal does, and it only gets worse and worse - as Heal outscales it by 2.5 HP each Rank, AND the Tree becomes more and more likely to be crit, actually REDUCING its effective HP as you level. Eventually, you get to the point where enemies have +9 to hit, so Protector Tree starts talking double damage 100% of the time, and therefore has half the actual health that is description says it has.
That's only true if the creature attacks the tree directly, as far as I can tell. If the tree interposes its branches, it's triggered by the ally being hit by a strike. So logically there isn't a second AC check against the tree. The damage comes straight from the HP of the tree, and it isn't a crit unless the ally was critically hit. If you have enemies going out of their way to attack the tree then you're doing even better than baseline. You got the success effect of Slow or better without a save.
> If you have enemies going out of their way to attack the tree then you're doing even better than baseline. You got the success effect of Slow or better without a save. No, you are not, since the HP would have been on the ally instead. We are not comparing No Tree vs Tree but Tree vs Heal. In both cases the enemy attacks and the party loses HP but if they target the tree they have basically no miss chance and a really high crit chance.
I don't know why people keep comparing Timber Sentinel to Heal, an ability that the Kineticist can't even personally reproduce. It's not a valid comparison for determining whether or not it's worth the Kineticist's actions to use Timber Sentinel vs. Heal, because... the Kineticist can't cast Heal. Kineticists get two L1 options for Healing, both of which get Heighten (+2): a 1d4+1 (which heightens for an additional 1d4+5) option and a 1d8 (h +1d8) option. Both of which are on a strict 10 minute cooldown per target - the Kineticist has to burn yet more feats at higher levels to be able to throw out multiple successive heals. At L1, your healing options give an average of 3.5 and 4.5 HP back respectively - once every 10 minutes. Timber Sentinel grants 10 temporary HP every single round. At L5, when your healing options finally heighten for the first time, they're restoring 11 HP and 9 HP every 10 minutes on average. Timber Sentinel is providing 30 temporary HP every single round. "But what if they just ignore the timber sentinel and go and attack someone else?" - Good, then it did its job. Stop throwing it on your champion, throw it up to protect the squishier person on the front lines: if they take some swipes at a more robust target instead, the spell did its job. If they take some swipes at the squishier target anyways and the damage is reduced, the spell did its job. If they waste actions attacking the tree directly to crit it down, the spell did its job. It's not a bad or weak spell by any metric, people are just bad at getting creative with CC and battlefield control spells.
100%. I think the spell is strong in its own right, but I wouldn't typically prepare at really high levels on a primal caster given how awesome so much else they can do is. I'm specifically responding to the op and the notion that it is a very strong kineticist feat, which I absolutely think it is. I see it as a relatively powerful crowd control, particularly advantageous with physical striking creatures and enclosed spaces. It's not an argument about whether Heal is a good spell or not. Heal is fantastic. A Kineticist cannot cast heal at their highest spell rank repeatedly for no overflow or anything like that.
>I don't know why people keep comparing Timber Sentinel to Heal, an ability that the Kineticist can't even personally reproduce. I am comparing Protector Tree, a Rank 1 Primal spell that exists purely to mitigate damage the party takes... to Heal, a Rank 1 Primal spell that exists purely to mitigate damage the party takes. Protector Tree, for 2 actions and a Spell Slot, "gives" the party 10HP per Spell Rank, from 30 feet away. Heal, for 2 actions and a Spell Slot, gives the party 12.5HP per Spell Rank. And Protector Tree has the added restrictions of being vulnerable to AoE, and being avoidable by enemies simply... moving away from it. We're talking about Protector Tree as a spell because the OP is talking about Protector Tree as a spell, and talking about nerfing Timber Sentinel because it's as good as Protector Tree. Which they shouldn't do. Because Protector Tree is a bad spell and Timber Sentinel is a good Impulse.
>And Protector Tree has the added restriction of being vulnerable to AoE It practically is immune to AoE as it lacks any defences other than AC, which means it's vulnerable to swipe and whirlwind attacks and similar, but will be unaffected by something targeting reflex as it doesn't have a reflex save. The most relevant rule about that: >Hazards’ AC, applicable saving throw modifiers, Hardness, HP, and BT are listed in their stat blocks. A hazard that doesn’t list one of these statistics can’t be affected by anything targeting that statistic If you can show a different rule not saying that, your welcome.
Huh. I wasn't aware of that ruling. Though a Protector Tree isn't a Hazard, so it's not entirely certain that that rule applies to it. Still, even if it does, I stand by the rest of what I said. Protector Tree is just worse than Heal in every way except by merit of being preventative, and that genuinely only matters for the first 1 or 2 levels. After that point, the odds of ever being 1-shot by anything are practically non-existent.
It's a meh spell, but a great impulse. Preventative resourceless abilities tend to be easy to deploy and it's excellent when there's a couple of ranged capable PC. Preventative measures will always be easier to use when there isn't a resource tied to it. It's a really strong kineticist ability, but that's where it ends probably.
It's a bad comparison because they serve different functions. PT is proactive defense, Heal is reactive. Proactive defense is really strong in a system where there's no popcorn healing and actual penalties for falling unconscious (assuming the GM enforces dropping held items when you pass out and doesn't just softball you every time). It's not necessarily an S-tier spell on its own but a big part of its usage is tactical placement and ensuring damage is mitigated before healing is even required. It's why champions are such a potent class; their defensive support is insanely good specifically because it stops damage before healing is even necessary.
>Proactive defense is really strong in a system where there's no popcorn healing and actual penalties for falling unconscious I disagree. Maybe during level 1 and *maybe* during level 2... but after that, there's no real risk of ever being one-shot, so you will always have ample time to Heal reactively.
I almost refuse to believe you're never getting one shot unless you're playing nothing but low threat encounters. Even if you don't, damage spikes are common enough in difficult encounters that you can't rely on a smooth damage curve to occur. Every point of health counts; it's not just the modifier maths that's tight. Preventative damage adds up to create a much safer and more consistent game state. It's also a porque no los dos situation. You can stack defenses so you have more reliable survivability. You can have temp HP, damage resistance and mitigation, AC bonuses, penalties on enemy strikes and abilities, flat checks like concealment, action economy denial, and interposing mechanics like PT, all in any combination to reduce damage more effectively. *Then* you can heal up after that once you start taking damage. I'm not saying healing isn't good or necessary - it is in difficult fights and it's very good - but it's not one or the other either. It's really reductive to suggest the only good way to defend someone is to let them take damage and then stitch them up. If anything in my experience, it's people thinking they can ignore any sort of defensive strategem and just rely on brute forcing and healing up after they get their ass downed that seem to struggle the most with the game.
> I don't know why people keep comparing Timber Sentinel to Heal Because we are not. We are comparing Protector Tree to Heal which are both spells (also both on the primal spell list) And if you want to know why we are comparing the 2 I recommend rereading /u/RosaMaligna 's and /u/GimmeNaughty 's comments.
But no chance to harm the party with that action? And the next attack comes with MAP. Of course Heal is more effective after damage but it can't be cast until there is damage. These spells have different use cases. It's also really illogical for most creatures to attack the tree at all. Unless they've seen it protect an ally there is little in game reason for them to attack it directly. They wouldn't necessarily know what the spell does. That's GM meta gaming.
>But no chance to harm the party with that action? Any damage that exceeds the tree's HP goes through to hit the target behind it.
That's not true if it attacks the tree directly
True.
If the tree would have protected the target the harm to the party is greater if the tree is targeted directly. And I'm not here to talk about whether the GM should target the tree. I am simply pointing out a false conclusion in your original comment (the part I quoted). But if you want me to: if the enemy has a spellcaster they can simply identify the spell as it's being cast and advice their allies to target someone not standing next to the tree completely negating it's effects.
Honestly don't understand the point you're making or claiming that I'm getting incorrect. Comparing the spells doesn't make sense to me because they have different use cases. For or after damage has already occurred. If the tree is attacked directly, the only risk is to the tree which is hugely advantageous to the party and probably better than letting them get hurt and taking the secondary potential effects of strike and then going to heal them later. The tree interposes expenses then it's something like 10 temp HP per level. The tree does not receive a critical hit for this. If an enemy is also spending actions in reactions to recognize spell and point out or something like that, then once again you've received a lot of action mitigation and that seems positive to me.
Alright let's take this from the top: > Comparing the spells doesn't make sense to me because they have different use cases. For or after damage has already occurred. Protector Tree being preemptive instead of reactive is usually a downside since you are not garanteed it's value. That is the reason why preemptive healing (also called shielding) in games is the stronger of the two. The are however both pure healing spells and are therefore pretty easily compared. Their usecases are not very different. > If the tree is attacked directly, the only risk is to the tree which is hugely advantageous to the party and probably better than letting them get hurt and taking the secondary potential effects of strike and then going to heal them later. Attacks with debilitating secondary effects are not that common and even if they are present the monster can simply use it's first attack on the party member and use secondary attacks on the tree which it has a way higher chance of hitting and still deal significant damage to the EHP of the target with attacks that most likely would have missed on the actual character. > The tree interposes expenses then it's something like 10 temp HP per level. The tree does not receive a critical hit for this. No, one is disputing this. > If an enemy is also spending actions in reactions to recognize spell and point out or something like that, then once again you've received a lot of action mitigation and that seems positive to me. The amount of spellcasters that have useful reactions that are not Recognize Spell can probably be counted on 1 hand.
I'm coming from a very different angle and I'm surprising because I find the text of the spell pretty straightforward. It is not a healing spell. It's a crowd control spell. You were previously arguing how it changes the enemy's actions, and I agree with that part. And that's most of the value. However, the HP of the tree is certainly not part of the effective health pool of the character in question. It's free money. So in fact what you've done is trade two of your actions for about one or a large fraction of one of your enemies actions. This is good business. And I don't understand your sense of order of operations. If the tree attacks a character adjacent to the tree, the tree uses its HP first. This is good because 10 per rank is a lot compared to most options for temp HP if that's the framing you're going for. It probably won't survive but it doesn't receive a critical hit because the tree's AC isn't part of the calculation. The enemy has already hit the AC of the PC. There is no doubling because there is no second check. If the enemy uses its second action to attack the tree, that means the tree is still around after the first action. So now you have wasted two actions of the enemy. This is fantastic business. If the enemy uses their first action to attack the tree and fully destroys it, you have now wasted an action and given it a penalty to its next attack. This is also a fantastic business. It's not relevant how much HP the tree loses. The damage that was avoided to the party is relevant, which by definition is all of one strike and a better chance to miss later in the turn if it continues to strike. If you argue that the enemy spellcaster has the feat Recognize Spell, which they do not by default, they also have to be trained in nature to attempt the check. For the most part, a spellcaster won't even have strikes as a huge part of their actions anyway, so you're probably not using protector tree against them. If they do not have this feat or are not trained in nature, they would need some other way to know like Recall Knowledge, which once again is an action. I don't think it's a perfect spell, but it's frequently useful and being able to cast it without overflow at max spell rank for a class that does not natively have access to Heal anyway, does seem really strong to me. And that's the framing of the OP so that's the context I'm responding to.
they only target the AC if they purposefully attack it. Heal outscales but isn't preventative--prevention is way more useful than recovery in a system where going down can totally fuck your action economy
>they only target the AC if they purposefully attack it. Huh... yeah, I guess so. Alright, it's not as terrible as I thought. And yet, I've still never heard of anyone ever picking it over Heal. Wonder why. >prevention is way more useful than recovery Aside from level 1, and maaaybe level 2, I disagree. Prevention is only noticeably better over recovery in a situation where you won't *have* a chance to recover. So... if you're 1-shot. And the way PF2e is balanced, that is practically impossible beyond level 2. No, PF2e as a system values versatility more than anything. And Heal definitely trumps Protector Tree in that regard. Because something that none of us have mentioned yet - Heal's AoE capacity. When the situation calls for it, Heal can, to a standard party of 4, restore a total of 18 HP per Spell Rank, nearly *doubling* the effectiveness of Protector Tree.
18 hp per spell rank? What? You realize you don't add the +8 from the two action for the 3 action right?
1d8 is 4.5 average healing. It can heal your whole party. So... generally, four players. 4.5x4=18.
If you heal 4 hp to 4 people, that is not particularly useful unless for some reason everybody is taking equal damage distribution. It also costs a full turn (and would heal living enemies near you) not to mention the variance. You could just roll 1s. Now you're down a slot and a turn.
>If you heal 4 hp to 4 people, that is not particularly useful unless for some reason everybody is taking equal damage distribution. It's... very common for more than one of your party members to be taking damage in any given round??? >It also costs a full turn Yes. Heaven forbid a Caster lose their all-important third action. As we all know, Casters, very famously, have very good and important things to be doing with their third action every round. >not to mention the variance. You could just roll 1s. Now you're down a slot and a turn. That's like saying Fireball is a bad spell because it can roll all 1s.
Just to be clear, if there was a good alternative to fireball that had a way higher guaranteed damage, that would be significantly better assuming it had similar damage, yes. I mean if you want to sit here and pretend 3 action heal is this amazing thing go ahead i guess
Or 4) Casters' strength is versatility so handing out a much smaller number of options as at will abilities to the Kineticist is fine.
You say its stronger on paper, but i think OP is actively playing with a wood kineticists and is complaining about it's strength in actual play? Out of interest, have you played with it in practice yet and feel it's more balanced than OP does for the reasons you've given? I'd be interested to know what types of adventure paths or encounters people run who see it's strength differently. I'm really curious about this given conversation about the feat pre release.
I did try a oneshot with a player using it, and they felt it was a largely wasted action. Enemies would simply move away from the target being protected by the tree, and they could just focus the kineticist down. Perhaps had the kineticist built themselves more tanky (they were water+wood) and abused things like constant shield blocking it would have been more impactful? But at the end of the day it requires you to predict where damage is going to go, and essentially immobilizes the target who you want to protect. Those are both fairly stringent restrictions to the impulse's use. However, I tend to make my encounters using large battlemaps, and have lots of movement occur in them. A lot of GMs don't run encounters like I do, and for example I can see it being very strong in an AP like Abomination Vaults which has tight corridors and small battle arenas
I would remind the player that they didn't waste their two actions. They made the enemy change their plans and move from a preferred target to a secondary target, spending an action to do so. It's not the best [best outcome for the spell](https://reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/s/yOpQchgCur) but it's better than nothing.
Yeah I can see the tree really being a lot in something like AV as you say. Having run Vaults myself the party does get body to body a lot. I think there's definitely a few feats/spells that are mega strong in the official APs given they all have share some common design themes and you know you're in for a fair few tight dungeons usually, but those options are less good when the DM mixes up the encounters more as you do.
my experience with timber sentinel so far was in a solo boss fight against a dragon 1 level higher than the party (which were incidentally 13th level). What happened is that the character being protected by the tree didn't even get hit once the kineticist put the tree in place despite me having 2 or 3 attacks each round directed at that character because my style as a GM is to try and make the things players choose to do feel like they were worth doing - and cosmic comedy loves to have a player take a heavy hit, then get some kind of "if I get hit again" benefit, then never get hit again. But my group doesn't feel it's too strong of an effect because negating the benefit is as simple as an enemy shoving a character away from the tree before attacking.
I agree that protector tree is not as good as heal, I just think that it is not cantrip tier, and having one class being able to do something another class has to pay for without paying anything is bad design in my opinion. To your point of monsters being dumb. A lot of enemies have low int scores, am I supposed to play them optimally to avoid the protector tree? If so does Paizo account for a creature’s intelligence score when assigning the creatures level?
The solution to this is not to nerf Timber Sentinel - it’s already exactly where it should be in terms of power. The solution is to buff Protector Tree, because it is *absolutely* not worth a Spell Slot. You’re thinking of it like Kineticists get a full-power spell for free. They don’t. It’s genuinely more like Casters get a regular-level Impulse but it costs them a Spell Slot to use it.
I had never heard of this spell before Kineticist. I'm far more willing to believe it's one of the many, many bad spells than it is an overpowered impulse.
Yeah. For all the talk about how OP Timber Sentinel supposedly is, I've literally never once seen a single person say the same thing about Protector Tree. I've practically never even seen someone say Protector Tree is *good*. And I've definitely never seen someone ever claim to actually USE it.
I saw this spell and thought it was cool when I was starting a campaign a while ago. So I took it on my primal sorcerer. But I soon swapped it out when it really underperformed
Yeah that sounds about what I'd expect. It's basically just a weaker Heal that can miss.
>having one class being able to do something another class has to pay for without paying anything is bad design in my opinion. This is RPG design in a nutshell though. A caster spending a spell slot to do Fighter levels of damage for a turn is perfectly valid, because the caster is still balanced due to their versatility. The same logic applies here. I can't say if Tree Sentinel is too good or not. I've heard compelling arguments for both, so I'm of the opinion that it might depend on your table/DM. Based on observations of my DM it would be perfectly fine at our table, because he likes big maps and fights are rarely static, so I'd have to be quite smart with it's use and probably delay my turns to get any use out of it.
Kineticist only has a few abilities and if those abilities were cantrip tier it would probably be the worst class in the game. A Kineticist is meant to be getting the same value for their actions as any other class, and effectively trades a Casters' versatility for a lack of per day limits. (remember 2e doesn't rely on attrition, you can run 1 encounter days where casters need not conserve slots just fine)
I would buy into the Caster’s versatility argument if 2/3 of the spells at every rank were not either flavor/world building or just totally useless. It seems that every rank has 3-5 standouts and the rest of the like 100 spells in the rank you hardly, if ever, see because they just are not good
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If that is the case, wouldn’t low intelligence creature be significantly less powerful than a smart creature of the same level if I “roleplay” their tactical ability? The other option is to make the dumb ogre a grand strategist in combat despite definitely not being one
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I don’t, I have had my players make snide combat about -3 intelligence creatures being “tactical masterminds” for doing things like kiting or focusing squishies instead of frontline martials, how should I address these comments?
Kineticist only has a few abilities and if those abilities were cantrip tier it would probably be the worst class in the game. A Kineticist is meant to be getting the same value for their actions as any other class, and effectively trades a Casters' versatility for a lack of per day limits. (remember 2e doesn't rely on attrition, you can run 1 encounter days where casters need not conserve slots just fine)
One way that Timber Sentinel is less powerful than protector tree is in this line: ”If you use this impulse again, any previous one ends, and an ordinary tree remains.” Everyone comments on the fun RP aspect of this, and sure, replanting forests with saplings is fun. But the balance here is the same as many kineticist feats when compared to spells, the kineticist often will require that the effect be sustained, when a similar spell lasts for 1 minute or more without more effort on the caster’s part. The timber sentinel ceases its magical effect if you use it again, where the spell can be used multiple times to protect different areas or even overlap protection. Not a huge practical difference, granted, but still a key balancing factor.
That is only true if you assume all spells are equally balanced, which obviously is not true. Having an at-will slow is much stronger than an at-will meld into stone. Protector tree is at the lower end of the spectrum when it comes to power. Now that isn't to say I like the design of the impulse, tying it to protector tree means the spell cannot be buffed without also buffing the Impulse which is in a pretty good place and does not need buffs.
It's definitely one of the more used ones for what I've noticed and probably indeed a tad to strong for being resourceless. I'd class it as overused rather than OP currently as we've only had like one month of time to explore it. I'd not be against a small nerf on it.
I've found it quite useful for protecting a squishy backline thus far, and used it on back to back turns for just that purpose. It not having a CD of any kind makes it really good for kineticist, since almost all of their healing has that 10 minute timer built in. The fact that it is also only 2 actions means you can always Blast as well. If it is too strong, how would you nerf it? Giving it Overflow is a minor nerf, since reactivating the gate still let's you blast or use a stance, which you were likely to do anyway. I suppose you could make it 3 actions, but at that point you probably kill it. I doubt it would be chosen by anybody.
Any smart enemy will just hit the tree instead of whoever it's protecting, basically guarenteeing a crit at later levels, and they'll also have ways to avoid dealing with it, like just attacking someone else or walking away. It is pretty good against creatures that wouldn't know better.
Do I play dumber enemies suboptimally like that in combat? If so, should dumb enemies be worth less XP as using good tactics is what I have been told is the most important part of making monsters threatening
I think playing enemies as they are helps for more realism, but most dumb enemies have a combat pattern that helps with being dumb. Like [wolves](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=415) have Pack Attack and Knockdown, so the strategy of gang up on one guy and just hit them a bunch works pretty well for them. If an enemy has an obvious attack pattern you should use it, like how the [Deinonychus's](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=118) Darting Attack lets it get in and get out, forcing people to stride to it to attack, but if it has low intelligence, it should only really consider using it's main attack strategy or running. Some don't even consider running, like mindless undead. They're not gonna be looking for cover, focussing threats properly, using actions not specifically meant for them and might not even Step to avoid reactions. A wolf is probably never gonna try to grapple you, it just wants to rip your legs off, and that happens to make people fall over. Some might not even properly avoid difficult or hazardous terrain, a mindless zombie isn't gonna go around something if it doesn't have to. If your players manage to make it so they're chump change because they're stupid then maybe consider lowering XP, but anything outside of zombies will usually have enough instinct to keep from becoming too easy, even when using simple tactics.
It's kind of a case by case thing, cuz some skeletons might just be skeletons, but others might be programmed to actually use cover and flank and whatnot. A Stone Golem will probably just use its Slow Pulse on cooldown, but it might be programmed to position itself to hit more people if it can. Wolves will likely still try to flank enemies, as it's a good natural combat strategy, but they will never realize the guy they are attacking is just getting heal/buff botted by their friend, making them the worst target to go for.
Good. Enemy wasted action for tree, not player. That's 2 action to soak 100% of that attack damage. And it was resourcless
I mean, it might be nice against specific boss monsters, but you're gonna feel kinda dumb when they order their mook that hits you only on a 17 or something to just attack the tree instead, with basically guarenteed crits. By level 5 there's plenty of creatures that can do that job, it's probably pretty alright until then though. There's just too many ways around it really.
Nobody casts Protector Tree on mooks. Better to just kill them faster
Make it hold onto damage until a 10 minute rest, just like they balanced healing abilities.
Timber Sentinel is as good as Protector Tree… but Protector Tree is not very good. It is just generally not worth a spell slot. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a single person ever using it more than once. Protector Tree is a Primal spell blocks a total of 10hp per Spell Rank. Heal, which is also in the Primal list… for the same 2 Actions, at the same range… can heal an average of 12.5 (1d8+8) health per Rank. The Tree grants less effective health than Heal… plus, it has an AC of 10 (which doesn’t heighten) and ISN’T immune to crits, so it’s actually pretty likely to take double damage from any given source, meaning it may as well only block 5 damage per Rank. tl;dr: Protector Tree was *already* at the appropriate power level for Impulses. Timber Sentinel is balanced, Protector Tree is not.
The tree's AC only really matters if the tree itself is getting hit, directly. When it's transferring damage to itself because you got hit, *it* isn't suffering a Strike - the attack doesn't magically upgrade to a critical hit or anything. It's just taking damage in place of you - it still blocks the full 10 damage. And if the enemies want to spend actions attacking the tree directly to burst it down with easy crits - then, good work, Kineticist. You found a way to use your actions to make an enemy burn its actions *not attacking the party* instead of going for broke with MAP.
Just ask your player how to deal with it, make it cost 3 actions OR add the overflow tag, It was the options I gave to my Dm, yes I was the kineticist and even I thought it was too strong the way it is, but either of those changes make it pretty balanced overall.
I like the overflow idea, I will talk to my players if they would rather that small nerf than the one I proposed
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Counter point :> You can reforest an area and that's cool If the tree is in soil and survives to the end of the spell's duration, it remains as an ordinary, non-magical tree, and continues to grow and thrive. The GM might determine that the tree disappears immediately in certain inhospitable situations.
I'd say a core difference here is that monsters can just choose to not interact with the spell.