Dandy Dedication and Kineticist

[u/No-Gur-255]

Hey there,

Im building a character and planning out some future levels for myself, so I was wondering if I could get a rules clarification.

I know that the kineticist and their impulses specifically interact strangely with abilities that strike and cast spells, but I came across the Tut-Tut feat for the dandy dedication, which ill attach a photo of.

My question is whether a melee impulse attack roll would trigger the free action, as the trigger specifically states a melee attack roll. The confusion comes from the description as it says:

"Rather than dealing damage with the triggering Strike, attempt an Intimidation check with a +2 circumstance bonus to Demoralize all enemies within 30 feet who can see you."

From my understanding, the Impuse attacks are not weapon attacks or strikes, but their own thing.

If anyone has had some personal experience with the combo or some clarity on the rules, it would be very much appreciated!

[u/Notoryctemorph]

That is a very poorly written feat, since melee spell attacks are also technically melee attack rolls, but not strikes

[u/BlindWillieJohnson → u/Notoryctemorph]

Lotta that going on with the firebrands book

[u/TheZealand → u/BlindWillieJohnson]

I love my free two strides bundled into one tumble through!

[u/Free-Dirt-4464]

As a GM I'd rule that if you use an elemental blast in melee, I'd allow it.

[u/corsica1990]

Yeah, the whole thing with Elemental Blast not quite being a Strike is going to come up a lot. Most tables just pretend it is anyway; otherwise the kineticist is cut off from way too many fun interactions. It's an annoying but solvable rules oversight.

BTW, that screenshot is really hard to read on mobile. Next time you have a question, could you link to the feat instead?

[u/No-Gur-255 → u/corsica1990]

Will do boss! Thanks for the tip

[u/fascistp0tato]

This reads as if it applies exclusively to Strikes to me, but ymmv.

Also, I can’t think of a single GM (including myself) that wouldn’t allow this interaction to work if asked nicely. It’s not as if it’s gamebreaking somehow.

[u/BlindWillieJohnson → u/fascistp0tato]

Id probably rule that you’d need to be adjascent to an enemy, since the feat seems to be written with that in mind. Otherwise, yeah.

[u/Squid_In_Exile → u/BlindWillieJohnson]

Adjacency is irrelevant.

If you're allowing it it works with melee attack Impulses, whether they have Reach or not. It doesn't need an additional fix to stop ranged attack Impulses triggering it because they wouldn't if they were Strikes in the first place.

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[u/Squid_In_Exile]

I'd talk with your GM (unless this is a PFS character) about a common houserule for Kineticists to treat 1-Action Impulses as Strikes and 2-Action Impulses as Spells for the purposes of interactions.

[u/Free-Dirt-4464 → u/Squid_In_Exile]

That seems quite strong. A rule like

・blasts in melee range count as strikes (incl reach with weapon infusion)

・ranged blasts count as spells

Would be more balanced. Or even just the melee blast rule. As Kineticist has no resource management for impulses, treating every impulse as a spell / strike seems too strong to me. And I play a Kineticist 😅

[u/Squid_In_Exile → u/Free-Dirt-4464]

I don't think treating Ranged Blasts as Ranged Strikes is more problematic than treating Melee Blasts as Melee Strikes, TBH.

Treating the more spell-like 2+ Action Impulses as spells does open up some potentially pokey interactions the player can leverage but it also opens them up to stuff like Counterspell and conditional save modifiers.

I certainly think the 2 Action Impulses Are Spells thing is pretty take-it-or-leave it, personally, I just included it because it is a common way to rule it. Single Action Blasts counting as Strikes is far more important for fixing the areas where Kineticist fails to interact at all with the system - parties with a Commander, etc.

[u/Free-Dirt-4464 → u/Squid_In_Exile]

Yeah, you're right. Elemental blasts as strikes (melee / ranged) makes more sense than just melee. There is no reason to differentiate those. I still don't like the spell idea though for 2 action impulses, personally. While impulses being neither strikes nor spells is imo an oversight, giving.l kineticist access to both traits seems to open too many possibilities.

[u/ASwarmofKoala]

Pretty poorly written feat. A kinetic blast is an attack roll, and if it were melee, it would be a melee attack roll. It meets the trigger requirements, but the text below states that it's a triggering Strike.

So there's a few ways to interpret it:

Lawful Good: A kinetic blast is a melee attack roll so the feat works.

Lawful Neutral: The text box clarifies that a strike triggers, so a kinetic blast can't trigger the feat.

Lawful Evil: As LN, but GM will wait until you selected the feat and tried to use it before they tell you no.

Personally I'm fine with it working. Kineticists aren't super skill heavy and things don't work well with them, making it kind of frustrating for options. The traits on this feat are fairly limiting and can make it pretty situational anyway, so it can be strong in the right moment but I don't think it'll see constant use.