ZEITGEIST Asrabey as a pyrokineticist

[Meigeall]

Redesigned Asrabey for my game as a kinetic knight. I'm partial to the class myself, and this let me drop his equipment (which I found a little problematic) while retaining his aesthetic. He's fast, deadly, and nigh unstoppable... at least until something is immune to fire. If you find mistakes, please let me know.

Edit: and then I found a mistake... guess I'll drop greater overrun for charge through.

 

[RangerWickett]

I'd say to be careful, because in the first adventure Asrabey is supposed to be a threat who drop a PC in one hit, but hopefully not kill them. And pretty much no 3rd level PC in Pathfinder has enough HP to tank an average of 35 damage from this Asrabey.

 

[Meigeall]

Actually just finished the first adventure with my group. Since Asrabey was not trying to kill them, he had the option of overrunning them and just walking out—an unstoppable juggernaut. The overrun only does 1d8+11ish (depending on elemental overload's stat increases), which is enough to drop any of my first level characters without actually killing them. As written in the adventure, Asrabey's 16-28 damage with 15' reach and a crit on 17-20 is really scary to first level characters... and that's if you're pulling your punches and not using Power Attack and Improved Vital Strike.

In my group, no one is playing a d6 HD character and everyone has invested a little in Con. If anyone wanted to use a less deadly form of this, you can change his armor or strength score—every 2 points of either lost equates to 1 less damage. Trading out Bulette Rampage for another feat eliminates the damage from overrun. Good replacements could be: improved critical, improved initiative, toughness, dodge, or lunge.

Granted, that's not how it went down, but I made sure to have the option.

How it actually went:

Spoiler

It started with the party talking their way past Ghillie Dhu. After entering the central tower, they listened in on the conversation between Asrabey and the Duchess. Entering the room, the party again chose to parlay. They believed Asrabey's claim that he wanted a boat and whatnot, and they were going to handover it all over. They insisted on escorting him to the harbor though, even as he carried the tiefling and held the Duchess hostage. When they exited the tower, Ghillie Dhu confronted Asrabey. While the party tried to defuse that situation, Asrabey used the opportunity to leap atop the hedge... setting it on fire. Next, he attacked and killed the Duchess, then he made all haste for the teleportation circle, still carrying the tiefling.

 

[Meigeall]

Updated the sheet to point out that a couple substance infusions let you halve the damage from the kinetic blast, which should also help with pulling punches.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

For Asraby's appearences later when the players may actually fight him I would strongly suggest giving him a second element . My Kinetic knight in my campaign found it vital as it meant that the opponents could not just load out with Lightning resistance to make him useless. He went with force but Asraby I think would work better with Water giving him a fire/cold duality which is very Av

I had no problem with my version being able to kill the whole group in book one, Hero points, his lack of interest in finishing them and his failure to consider the danger of bullets caused him to lose anyway. Its giving him the very low current hp total which makes it possible for him to be defeated

 

[Meigeall]

I hope that when they might actually fight him is after a sudden and unexpected betrayal, and so they will be caught off-guard. If, on the other hand, it is not so unexpected, and they are well prepared for him, Asrabey will have to fall back on overrun and trying to escape.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

Makes sense. May also depend on the system.
We used pathfinder and Communal protection from energy immediatly shuts down a Kinetecist(Blocks 120 pts of damage) and they always have a couple of those prepared in every campaign