One of the most interesting and fresh classes from Occult Adventures is the kineticist. Loosely based on the mechanics of the old 3ed. warlock, the kineticists is your "all day magic, all day blasts" class, but having an elemental flavor akin to the Avatar series.

It was the most discussed class in the playtest and I bet my d20s that it is the most used one as well! Even Paizo released more material for the class right away.

But well, here we are with a deceptively-called book, Kineticists of Porphyra, that has actually 1 page of flavor for the Porphyra campaign setting, and the rest of the material is mostly setting neutral with a short paragraph here and there about Porphyra.

Right away we get a presentation of the new archetypes:

Cerebral Kineticist: These guys are Int based instead of Con, and suffer mental conditions instead of reduced HP when they get Burn. They also get acces to all Knowledge skills. Perfect if you want to play a scholar kineticist.

Elemental Avatar: Perfect for indesicive players and fans of the Avatar series, these guys start the game having access to the 4 classic elements, including one blast each. They get some extra limitiations and will never dable in any other element, so be aware of that.

Elemental Scion: For those wanting to focus only on one element, these people do more damage with their element from 1st level. Perfect for those of us who like the idea of specialization, something the original class should have been able to do.

Kinetic Duelists: For those who like to get into melee, this class has it all. Expanded weapon and armor proficiencies pluss greater melee capabilities at the cost of range. Unlike the other archetypes, these Duelists offer a completely different playstyle.

After th archetypes we are introduced to new elements: Light, Sound and Time, each accompanied by their respective blasts, elemental defenses and composite blasts, including a focused for those who double-dip in them.

Then we get to the biggest part of the book, with tons of new infusions and utility wild talents. Two things of note, most of the infusions and wild talents are for the new elements (as expected), but a couple are for the new elements introduced in Occult Origins. Wood and Void really needed the influx of new toys, but if you don't have access to that book you will have some unusubale ones.

We finish the book with a small section on new feats and a sample character.

Final Thoughts: All in all an impressive offering of new toys for kineticists. I was particularly impressed by the new elements, since each has a distinct flavor and a mechanical role.

If you are interested in the class or want to have a kineticist-only or gestalt campaign, you can't go wrong with Kineticist of Porphyra! Easely 5 stars.

PS: If you weren't impressed with the author's other book, the Chi Warrior, this is a completely different beast!

An Endzeitgeist.com review

The first of the much lauded Kineticist of Porphyra-books clocks in at 50 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 2 pages of SRD, leaving us with 46 pages of content - however, you should be aware that the layout for this book is that of a single-column one, with the obvious intent of being printed out in A5 (or paperback) content, which means that there is a bit less content herein than you'd expect from the page-count. However, there is still A LOT of ground to cover, so let's take a look, shall we? Oh, one, more thing - this review is based on the fifth iteration of the book, just in case you were wondering.

We begin, after a brief discussion on the discovery of kineticism on Porphyra, with a selection of archetypes, the first of which would be the cerebral kineticist, whose key ability for wild talents, DCs, concentration etc. is not Constitution, but Intelligence. This, obviously, render the kineticist much more fragile and though the archetype gains the Knowledge skills, the archetype does replace its 1st level infusion with the ability to accept 2 points of burn without suffering any negative effects, +1 at 4th level and every 5 levels thereafter.

Now if you're like me, you'd consider this burn buffer to be pretty excellent for characters that do have a decent Con-stat (after all, the kineticist is not particularly MAD), but thankfully, the archetype does have something to reign the otherwise apparent abuse capability in - psychological burn, which means that the kineticist takes an increasing amount of debilitating conditions that last until burn is recovered (OUCH!) from a list that begins at dazzled and ends at comatose. Instead of elemental overflow, they can grant themselves a morale bonus to any mental ability score. Okay, we begin with a whopper - you read mental shield and think WTF. Then you start doing the math and, provided you do not utilize further burn-mitigating combos, it actually comes out rather nicely. Daring design...I like it.

The elemental avatar gets all primary elements as...well...primary elements, but pay for this flexibility with the inability to execute composite blasts apart from via elemental fusion and the fact that the first infusion gained is delayed to 3rd level, while the first utility wild talent is delayed to 2nd level, with additional ones showing up every 3 levels thereafter. On a plus, the added flexibility also applies to elemental defense. Now I mentioned elemental fusion - they gain this type of composite blast at 7th level, with either a combo of three physical damage types (avatar blast) or untyped damage (spirit blast) being the options available.

Both suffer from reduced damage dice (down to d4s) and are considered associated blasts for three elements (air, earth, water for avatar; electric, fire, cold for spirit blasts) for infusion purposes. Instead of metakinesis, these guys may, at 9th level add a second elemental defense per 2 burn accepted, as though they had accepted 1 point of burn for the purposes of its effects, replacing thus metakinesis (maximize). 10th level provides a simple blast wild talent as though it were a 1st level utility wild talent and, as a capstone, he can enter basically avatar-form, with elemental defenses and overflow are treated as though he had accepted 10 points of burn and reduces burn costs of kinetic blasts by 2, but with each round causing one burn and Con-mod being the cap for consecutive rounds spent in this state, being exhausted thereafter. So yeah, in case you were wondering - this is pretty much the avatar-archetypes fans of the franchise have been asking for.

The elemental scions can choose to gain both associated blasts for their elements or increase the damage of simple blasts by one step, altering elemental focus and replacing the infusion granted at level 1. 7th level nets the archetype a composite blast that requires the expanded element of the primary element and is treated as +2 levels for purpose of infusion and wild talent selection, +1 DC. Additionally, they gain +1 utility talent or infusion. Finally, if they elected not to increase damage dice, they may now do so for a simple blast in place of the infusion or wild talent gained and they may choose a simple blast wild talent as a 1st level wild talent; this ability, though, consumes the expanded element class feature. 15th level provides +1 DC for infusions and wild talents as well as damage die size-increase for simple and composite blasts, while also gaining +1 utility wild talent or infusion, eliminating the expanded element gained at 15th level. The capstone replaces omnikinesis with +1 infusion or wild talent and treats all infusions or wild talents as though they had been enhanced by +1 point of burn. Basically, this is the one-element-specialist. Should have been part of the base-class. Not too blown away, but what many people wanted.

The final archetype would be the kinetic duelist, who gets an expanded list of proficiencies and may channel his power in the form of a kinetic blade, allowing the duelist to make AoOs with it, with the lack of range (apart from via the ranged blast infusion) and a restriction of infusions available for their melee kinetic blast in blade form paying for this. The aforementioned ranged infusion is btw. potentially available from 1st level onwards, with 10th level unlocking kinetic whip mastery as a utility wild talent, allowing you to treat your blade-shaped blast instead like a whip-shaped blast - i.e. the signature kinetic blade mastery is instead applied as though it was used in conjunction with the kinetic whip infusion. 11th level allows the duelist to gather power as part of a full attack. 13th level provides a brutal trick: Kinetic Assault lets the duelist charge for 4 burn via the universal form infusion, not provoke AoOs...and increase DCs AND DOUBLE damage. OUCH. Considering the kineticist's damage output, that's pretty savage. Oh, and at 17th level, you can have two such blades...which is cool and all and has the proper rules-language to work...but still. These powers, btw., come at the cost of metakinesist and supercharge. I like this more melee-centric kineticist since it offers the most radical departure from the playing-style of a vanilla kineticist, but personally, I would have elected for a fixed value damage increase for the charge - flat-out doubling tends to be brutal in actual gameplay, when buffs, other archetypes, etc. come into play.

So far, so basic, right? These archetypes would not be, at least to me, the main meat of this book, though - that honor would be reserved for the new elements that can be seen as a liberation strike that frees the kineticist from all too restrictive elemental theme. Yeah, I know...avatar-fan--the-class, but personally, I wanted to play other guys...so what do we get? Well, the first element would be light, practiced by photokineticists, who gain Disguise and Knowledge (nature) as class skills and basic photokinesis as basic manipulation. light deals half damage when used in conjunction with the eruption form infusion. Defense-wise, the wild talent sports illusory duplicates that act like regenerating mirror images. The blasts inflict your choice of the three physical damage-types, with composite blasts allowing for the inclusion of cold or lightning damage, combination of physical damage-types etc. Things get a tad bit more interesting in the infusions, where you can basically make attacks that help hit a foe outlined by your light, dispelling magical darkness (hooray for non mathfinder-y abilities!) or faerie fire them -you get the idea.

The second new element provided herein would be sound, which nets Diplomacy and Knowledge (local), basic vibrokinesis and either sonic blast (sonic damage, one damage die step lower to account for scarcity of damage-type - NICE!) or vibration (bludgeoning) blast as simple blasts, with elemental defense, victorious aria, providing bonuses to all saves that increase for accepted burn. I am not 100% sold on auto-deafen when you accept burn for a sound wild talent, but the range of only 5 feet mitigates the no-save power of that effect. Now obviously, sound also gets new composite blasts. Infusion-wise, this is where things get...unique. Attuning infusion lets you treat the target of a successfully damaged target as origin of your own subsequent kinetic blasts and composite blasts, provided they include sound among their elements. This lasts for 1 minute and would be cool...however, you can ALSO reduce the damage dealt to 0 to double the duration to 2 minutes, allowing you to attune your whole group, if need be - why? Well, because there is no maximum number of attuned creatures; the only limit is the time-frame. Granted, the 30 ft. maximum range is an inhibitor, but one that a clever group can use. Still, it's this short range that keeps me from yelling OP here, just sayin'. ;)

Breaking down DR or hardness with sound, penalizing and disorienting foes - the massive infusion-chapter has quite a few tricks we've been waiting for...but you want to know what the third element does, right? Well, that would be time and chronokineticists get Appraise and Knowledge (history) as class skills, basic chronokinesis and an unytped blast that has damage reduced by one step...which imho could have been another step, considering the inability to defend against it...with anything. The elemental defense nets you increasing miss chances that can be strengthened by accepting more burn and wild talents render you temporarily incorporeal when accepting burn for them. Time lets you increase the damage dice of the composite blast alteration amplification by one step or deal nonlethal damage to the target. Level 5 daze infusions, Con-damage, forcing to roll twice and take the worse result...pretty cool. Now, where the pdf overshoots the target a bit is with hindering infusion, which, as a, level 1 burn 1 infusion, allows you to keep foes from executing AoOs for one round....which can be very nasty, if done properly. On the other hand, I can see people enjoying the tactical option this provides...so yeah. Personally, I would have made this one a tad bit more expensive.

However, it's not just the new elements that get material herein - the infusions also extend to the established elements, with e.g. the option to imprison targets à la ice tomb, full damage to incorporeal creatures (again, imho underpriced) or, and that would be pretty awesome, gravity-manipulation for void. You could also afflict foes with overload infusions, which penalize those hit for taking standard or full-round actions...ouch. (And yes, save to negate, thankfully!) I also particularly enjoyed the option to delay the onset of damage you caused by a couple of rounds.

Now where the pdf comes even more into its own, at least for me, would be in the significant array of utility wild talents that range from silence to mending or tree stride, generate auditory illusions, charm foes, delay the onset of negative conditions for yourself and allies (within limits), gain echolocation, create exploding illusions (now this is fun!), catapult allies around, create a doppelganger from light that may act as your point of origin for light-including blasts (and swap places with it via light speed travel)...pretty cool. The level 6 burn 1 immediate action micro-time stop called temporal interruption may be a bit too much, though - even with the caveat of not being capable of affecting other creatures or their objects, an additional standard action at only 1 burn is underpriced. Hard. Similarly, stealing swift actions, thanks to Will-save and SR, is fine with me at high levels (though 1 round per level is too long a duration and burn 0...not seeing it- that ability can literally break whole builds!), but also gaining a second swift action for only 1 burn as an additional trick... is too strong. It's also, paradoxically, less powerful than its greater version, which steals move actions. Move actions will generally break no whole build asunder. They'll cripple movement and damage-output, yep...but that's it. As a nitpick: I assume the stolen move action does not prevent full attacks, but clarification would be nice since there are instances when it does and when it doesn't.

The pdf also contains a huge array of feats, which allow for e.g. action expenditure to set up lower burn costs in the next round, which is nice. There seem to be some minor glitches here and there - Adaptive Utility, for example, reads "You treat the level of all utility wild talents have their effective spell level treated as 1/2 your kineticist level for determining their DC" - I think something went wrong here....as written, I can guesstimate what that one does, but I'm not 100% sure. better range, specialization, less burn for an infusion - the pdf's feat array covers the specialization options I actually expected from the core book...so kudos indeed, particularly for the much required feat to gather energy silently (only perceivable within 10 ft.)!

The pdf concludes with a sample character.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting, on a formal level, are very good; on a rules-level, they are similarly precise, juggling the intricate framework of kineticist terminology with ease and panache. Layout adheres, as mentioned before, to a 1-column standard and the pdf sports some nice full-color artworks. The pdf comes with exceedingly detailed bookmarks for EVERYTHING. Each blast, each infusion. Kudos!

Jolly's Kineticists of Porphyra I is basically the required expansion for the base-class, the 3pp book that covers all the things the base class ought to have. And it does so in a refined, precise manner! I certainly understand the amount of praise this has received from its fanbase and the accolades, particularly for a construct of this complexity, are justified. This is high-difficulty design and NOTHING close to the design of the last book by N. Jolly I've read - the growth of the author is truly impressive. He and team KOP (Jacob McCoy, Mort, Onyx Tanuki) did a rather impressive job here.

After reading, testing and digesting this, I certainly get where all the love is coming from - there are no filler-options in this book. Each piece of crunch has serious use in game. At same time, I do wholeheartedly believe that some of the components are underpriced for what they allow the kineticist to do - no problem for high-powered groups, sure, but for grittier rounds...well. That can be a bit problematic. Not unmanageable, mind you...but yeah. There are some options I'll nerf for my game...but I'll get to that component more in detail in the review of KOP III, where I'll provide a preliminary conclusion to my tests of the KOP-material.

There's another component here I'd ask you to bear in mind: I have a hard time separating this from its follow-up books (reviews, as mentioned, forthcoming!) since I playtested them all at once. And in direct comparison, this one feels more like the "make the kineticist a properly working class beyond a very narrow take on a niche"-book, like the "basics that need to be finished before the mind-boggling stuff begins." This is basically the book that lets you do the whole Avatar-shticks, with some cool additional material thrown in, whereas book II and III go more than one step further. It is hence, I arrive at a final verdict of 4.5 stars, rounded down to 4 for me as a person.

However, as a reviewer, I have to take my audience into account and know that a lot of you have significantly more love for the elemental-themes than I do...and you get what you asked for. While I'd consider caution regarding some options, my official verdict as a reviewer will hence round up from 4.5 for the purpose of this platform.

Endzeitgeist out.

While the kineticist itself is a fun class, both occult adventures and occult origins lacked content for it. This is totally fixed and more with this supplement, giving 3 new elements and a boatload of new options for old ones, helping to really expand the abilities of this class. It's a huge help if you wanna make kineticists more diverse, definitely worth checking out.

Since Occult Adventures came out I've seen a few products crop up to support the new psychic classes to bring them up to the bulk of options that other base classes enjoy. This product from Purple Duck Games is based on the Kineticist.

After some fluff to explain how kineticists work in Porphyra we kick off with new archetypes for the kineticist. There are four. Some are obvious ones such as the Elemental Avatar that controls earth, air, fire and water, and the Elemental Scion that focuses on one element. The other two feel like they represent the ends of the martial caster spectrum where the Cerebral Kineticist that gets mental buffs instead of physical ones and changes it's main ability score from Con to Int, then there's the Kinetic Duelist makes for a straight melee battler kineticist. The ones that need them, Elemental Avatar and Kinetic Duelist get some archetype specific wild talents to support them. Honestly I'm a little concerned that these types of archetypes weren't the first that Paizo made when I did some light digging to check for redundant concepts. Beyond the archetypes that needed obvious representation the same could be said for the new elements in here, Light, Sound, and Time.

The new elements of course come with a whole list of wild talents which take up most of the rest of the document, about 30 pages worth of talents. If the previous paragraph sounds like a lot of grid-filling, it certainly feels like it, and the wild talents follow the same route. Not that this is bad, particularly since these are grids that should have been filled from the beginning, but nothing particularly exciting happens if you're familiar with tropes of the new elements. If not then you'll have a blast (heh) because most of the effects are worth having making choosing actually pretty difficult. In some cases they're almost be too good since there are so many paizo wild talents that I'd gladly pass on. I'm also just wary about any status effect infusions since you risk handing out status effects like a witch hex only with more damage. Of course I could not playtest all of these as there are quite a few of them so for the most part I had to make guesses so your milage may vary. (As a side note, sometimes Kineticist Abilities are hard to judge. Comparing them to spells they resemble is one thing but you also have to take into consideration burn, burn mitigation, the fact that the Kineticist barely does anything outside of it's Kineticizing. ) Some you do have to suspend a bit of disbelief like Calming Tone, a utility talent that functions as Charm Person that's associated with sound. The Wild talents aren't limited to the new elements. They cover up to Occult Origins in element considerations which is nice.

After the new wild talents are a few feats the probably should have been printed by now. One to reduce how much burn you get and one to gather more energy among other very obvious ones. Then the product ends with a Kinetic Duelist NPC stat block.

This product seems to have some new and exciting things in it but it mostly achieves this by filling in concepts that I had expected to see in a Paizo book rather than something high concept and obscure. Especially things like Elemental Avatar due to the popularity of things like Avatar the Last Airbender. Sure you can achieve a similar effect with vanilla Kineticist but its not the same. But the fact of the matter is that Paizo did not print these concepts yet and these fit in pretty well without being trap options so the gridfilling is all positive leaving me with new ideas for characters and material to bring them to life, which is what a product like this is supposed to do. If I had an actual criticism it would be that I'm suspicious of how good some of the options are, or at least I would be if I had some faith that the kineticist chassis had a real way to abuse these things so I'm willing to give it 5 out of 5 stars until something comes up at the table.

You can find this review and more over at malwing.blogspot.com

I'm a big fan of Kineticists (i've got some problems, but i can overlook them for the most part). However, one of my key issues with the class was that I wanted more elements. Occult Origins helped out a bit, but I still wanted more to work with. Additionally, there wasn't a huge selection of feats to pick from either. There were maybe 2-3 feats in the Occult book about this.

That's where Kineticistis of Porphyra steps in. It introduces 3 new elements (time, sound, light), while also increasing the abilities of the ones from the Paizo. There's plenty of support for mixing both too! For example within composite blasts, you have Crystal Blast, which mixes earth and light. Or you can pick something like Alteration Amplification which would turn any regular blast from a bunch of d6's to d8's.

There's plenty of new infusions to support the blasts as well. Beacon Infusion works for almost all light focused blasts, and lights your enemy up like a beacon, granting allies a bonus to hit, and if you accept another point of burn, bonus to damage as well. Or the leech infusion for void blasts where you gain life back from enemies you hit. A lot of stuff to work with. There's a lot here and they seem well-balanced compared to the core offerings. There's a lot of new wild talents as well, but I have not look too deeply into them. Nothing immediately stuck out as problematic though.

As for the feats, this book offers plenty of pickings that are genuinely useful. Burn Resistance allows you to take less damage from piling on burn, Kinetic Sniper allows your blasts to extend even further, or Precision Blast so you don't have to blast your friends if you use an AoE ability.

All in all, there's a huge amount of stuff in here, so anyone interested in kineticists should check out this book.

With Paizo’s release of the occult classes came the kineticist, an elemental magic user who draws upon their own body’s reserves of energy to perform incredible feats. Purple Duck games released a slew of new options for the kineticist by N. Jolly.

Flavor: Without being familiar with the Porphyra setting, the opening flavor of the supplement still drew me in. A well-written and intriguing piece on what kineticists are and where the various types of kineticists are found in Porphyra.

Archetypes: Jolly’s supplement offers several new archetypes (some so obvious, you have to wonder why Paizo didn’t create them initially). The Cerebral Kineticist uses her Intelligence score instead of her Constitution score to take burn and has an overall flavor twist toward mental prowess versus physical hardiness. The Elemental Avatar is exactly what it sounds like--master of all four elements right from the start. Fans of Avatar: the Last Airbender will love this archetype, as it gives you true versatility of the four common elements (earth, air, fire, water) that can’t be gotten with a standard kineticist. Elemental Scion might be the archetype that excited me the most, because it alleviates the issues that any caster faces when focusing on a single element. The abilities of the Scion are such that even when facing foes with elemental immunities or resistances, you aren’t out of the game. Lastly you have the Kinetic Duelist, a martial fighter who wields the power of the elements in their free hand. All four of these archetypes have their own strengths and I found them to be balanced well.

New Elements: The additional elements presented in this book are exciting options: light, sound, and time. All a little more intangible, but all so fun to use, and of course they come with new blasts and abilities. Most of these abilities are on par with what you’d get using one of Paizo’s elements, though a few of the blasts feel slightly underpowered. This is countered by more powerful composite blasts, but again, without playing all of the elements at a table, I can’t say for certain that the elements are imbalanced. My favorite of the new blasts is Discordant Augmentation, a power which increases the damage die of a simple blast. The new Wild Defenses and Infusions are delightfully flavored and appropriately powerful. There are a plethora of intriguing infusions, ranging from Pure Negative Infusion (void) to Lagging Infusion (time) to Stitching Infusion (aether). Both the infusions for new elements and old are well-balanced and good enough options that I’d choose many of them over the ones initially released by Paizo. I could talk forever about all the great Wild Talents and other abilities, but that would eat up the rest of this review. Jolly has outdone himself with the variety of options he presents.

New Feats: The book offers a variety of new feats specifically geared toward the kineticist. Whether you want to increase the amount of burn you can take, make your blasts more accurate, or just be a force to be reckoned with, Jolly has the feats for you. They fill some much needed blanks in the feats available to kineticists.

Cons: Very little to complain about. There were a few grammatical issues, a few abilities that could have been clarified a little more, but most players and GMs will be able to come to a ruling without much trouble. Aside from that, my only hesitation with this material is that a few of the abilities (looking at you, Elemental Embodiment) seem like they might be a tiny bit overpowered. However, without playtesting, I can’t say for certain that it’s an issue. Really, it’s just nitpicking, as most of the options presented are very solid and balanced.

Overall, this book is an excellent supplement to the kineticist class and a must-have for anyone who can’t wait for Paizo to put out more options (and even then, I’d say that the archetypes alone are a good reason to buy the book). The book is a steal at $3.99. You can buy it here or here.

5 out of 5 stars

A great expansion upon the Kineticist occult class, this title provides three new archetypes, each rather well balanced, as well as three new elements and a plethora or new wild talents for the new and pre-existing elements. That said it is, in some ways, odd. Those familiar with the Kineticist class will know that each element gains a movement-type utility wild talent at spell level third (level 6), but the three presented here do not gain their movement utilities until later. In addition, the Sound element does not seem to have one at all. That said, Light and Time, the other two elements, do have an exceptionally powerful movement ability, so perhaps this choice was implemented to balance the new options.

But that's just nitpicking. There are some balance issues present to be sure (the three new elements, while interesting, are also very weak in a lot of respects, especially Time) and they lack the "Saturation" features most of the original Kineticist elements have, which can make them an odd choice.

Still, despite that, Kineticists of Porphyra does open a lot of new potential for those interested in the class, and is very well written and organized for easy reading and navigation. I highly recommend anyone interested in the class to pick up this title; you'll be missing out on some great fun without it.

As a huge fan of the Kineticist, I'm excited to see additional content being released for the class like this. Kineticists function so much differently than other classes that many of the traditional feats and options you would turn to first don't quite work, which on the one hand gave kineticists a lot of room to do what they wanted, but at the expense of anything that really amped up their abilities in the vein of Rapid Shot, Power Attack, or metamagic feats. Likewise, as a new class, they still lack a lot of support with regards to different options for utility talents and infusions, leading to a slight degree of sameness across builds. This book fixes all of that and then some, with some interesting new archetypes, some fantastic new elements, a ton of new infusions and wild talents, and some useful new feats.

I'm going to address the cons first, because there aren't many and I like ending on a positive note. There are some minor grammatical errors sprinkled throughout the book--nothing that fundamentally changes the meaning of anything, but if you're a stickler for subject-verb agreement, they'll stand out. Also, there are a few talents and features that could use some clarification, but again, nothing major. Most tables should be able to come to reasonable rulings on the few examples I can think of, and N. Jolly is active on the boards if you absolutely have to get the word of god.

Now on to the goodies: 1) There are four new archetypes, of varying quality: The Cerebral Kineticist, an Int-based kineticist who suffers mental debilitation in place of nonlethal damage for burn; the Elemental Avatar, because everyone wants to be Aang and/or Korra; the Elemental Scion, which really rewards you for sticking with a single element; and the Kinetic Duelist, which is a melee-based kineticist which doesn't lose all the interesting stuff the way the Elemental Annihilator does. My quick review is that the Avatar and Scion actually seem to be good archetypes if you're interested in either greater versatility or only a single element, respectively, while the Kinetic Duelist changes the play style too much for me to really speak to it yet, and the Cerebral Kineticist, like the Overwhelming Soul, feels like it gives up too much for too little by trying to dance around burn.

2) There are three new elements, and they're all great: Light, Sound, and Time. Light kineticists have a lot of illusions (that they can make explode!) in addition to the light and blinding effects you'd expect, and seem like they'd make great tricksters. They also pair well with the Sound element, which involves a lot of audible illusions, but also has a wide grab-bag of really useful blast infusions and utility talents, letting them deafen foes, charm people, push around or confuse their foes, buff their friends like pseudo-bards, and gain echolocation. I personally feel like their elemental defense is on the weak side mechanically, but since it basically involves having your own personal soundtrack playing at all times it's also possibly my favorite defense for roleplaying purposes. And finally, the Time element is for people who like to mess with people, since so many of their abilities are based on debuffing their foes, messing with their actions, slowing or stopping time, and even stealing time from other people (oh hey, I'll just take all of your move actions for the rest of the combat, thanks!).

3) There are more new infusions and utility talents in this book than you can shake a halfling at, and they do a good job of providing interesting abilities for the new elements as well as bolstering the existing elements. Just a quick sample: phytokineticists can now turn their foes into trees, hydrokineticists and geokineticists can encase their foes in ice or rock, and chaokineticists can raise their fallen foes as zombies, steal their life as temporary hit points, or just summon some black tentacles from the weird things that live past the stars to grapple their foes to death. I don't see anything that seems unbalanced at first glance, and in fact like the core kineticist, many of the new talents seem to be rather conservative in their power for my taste. On the other hand, everything also seems useful, unlike some of the core kineticist's talents, so I feel like they've hit a sweet spot here.

4) And finally, there are a handful of genuinely useful feats. There are a few feats that alter your ability to gather power or handle burn, reducing the nonlethal damage you take, improving your internal buffer, or letting you gather power faster or more quietly. Adaptive Utility might be the best feat in the book for certain elements, as it improves the DCs for all of your utility talents, but Kinetic Prodigy lets you qualify for infusions at an improved rate, which makes it a fantastic pick early on. And finally, there's a feat that lets you sculpt your AoE blasts so you don't accidentally clobber your friends, which is a great addition.

In conclusion, this is a great book for fans of the kineticist, and the price is a steal. Get it, love it, and if you happen to roll up a chronokineticist, I'd maybe recommend bringing your DM some pizza to apologize in advance for how much fun you're about to have messing up his action economy.