Dark Elementalist

Some kineticists who are loath to suffer the consequences of channeling their power study the darkest esoteric energies of the planes and use souls to fuel their occult might. The spiritual tortures these dark elementalists inflict upon their victims’ souls are horrifically selfish acts on par with the actions of daemons.

Alignment: Since harming souls is a wicked act, a dark elementalist must be of an evil alignment. If they become non-evil, they can’t use any of their dark elementalist abilities other than dark studies, though they can still use their other kineticist class features.

Dark Studies: A dark elementalist’s base Will save bonus from the kineticist class is equal to 2 + 1/2 their kineticist level, and their base Reflex and Fortitude save bonuses are equal to 1/3 their kineticist level. They gain all Knowledge skills as class skills.

A dark elementalist uses their Intelligence modifier instead of their Constitution modifier to determine their damage with wild talents, the DCs of Constitution-based wild talents, the durations of wild talents with Constitution-based durations, their bonus on concentration checks for wild talents, and any other Constitution-based effects of all their wild talents.

This alters the kineticist’s class skills, base saving throws, and the key ability score of wild talents.

Soul Power: A dark elementalist uses the souls of others to protect themselves from the dangers of burn.

They can’t choose to accept burn if doing so would raise their total number of points of burn above 3. However, a number of times per day equal to their Intelligence modifier, as a full-round action they can gather up the soul of a sentient creature with a CR equal to or higher than their character level, as long as that creature died in the past minute. When they do, some of their existing burn is unloaded into the departing soul, racking it with unspeakable torment, but reducing their current burn total by 1 point. A soul used in this way cannot be brought back to life as if it died of a death effect. Using a soul like this doesn’t heal the nonlethal damage from that point of burn immediately, but does enable the dark elementalist to heal the nonlethal damage from that point of burn normally.

At 6th level, racking a soul in this way forces anyone trying to bring the creature back to life to succeed at a caster level check (DC = 10 + the dark elementalist’s kineticist level) or the attempt fails. At 11th level, even if the creature returns from the dead, its soul is so damaged by the agony that it takes 2d6 points of Wisdom damage (or 3d10 points of sanity damage if using the sanity system). At 16th level, the soul is destroyed in the process, and the creature can be restored only by a miracle or wish.

A dark elementalist gains attack and damage bonuses from elemental overflow based on how many times that day they have used soul power to rack a soul, rather than based on their current burn total. For instance, a 9th-level dark elementalist who used soul power to rack three or more souls during the course of the day would add a +3 bonus on attack rolls and a +6 bonus on damage rolls. A dark elementalist does not gain size bonuses to physical ability scores or a chance to ignore critical hits and sneak attacks from elemental overflow.

This alters burn and elemental overflow and replaces internal buffer.

Dark elementalists may learn the following unique feats:

Soul Feast

Prerequisite(s): Dark elementalist 7th.

Benefit(s): You gain alchemical bonuses to your mental ability scores based on the number of souls you’ve wracked with soul power since the last time you’ve recovered burn and your current dark elementalist level. If you’ve racked three or more souls, you receive a +2 alchemical bonus to two mental ability scores of your choice; if you’ve wracked five or more souls and you are at least an 11th level dark elementalist, you receive a +4 alchemical bonus to one mental ability score of your choice and a +2 alchemical bonus to each of the remaining mental ability scores; if you’ve wracked seven or more souls and you are at least a 16th level dark elementalist, you receive a +6 alchemical bonus to one mental ability score, a +4 alchemical bonus to another, and a +2 alchemical bonus to the third.

Normal: You only receive bonuses to your attack and damage rolls from using soul power to rack souls.

Soul Tormentor

Prerequisite(s): Dark elementalist 7th.

Benefit(s): You can use your soul power class feature to wrack the soul of any sentient creature that has died within the past week. In addition, your elemental overflow’s bonuses are based on a combination of both the amount of burn you’ve accepted that day plus the number of souls you’ve racked with soul power that day.

Normal: You can only use soul power to wrack the soul of a sentient creature that has died in the past minute, and your elemental overflow’s bonuses are based only on how many souls you have racked that day.