Kinetic Vanguard v7.15.7 — Ember Lance T2 Reverted, Barrier T2 Gains a Real Upgrade

Two items this patch. The first is a design reversal I should have made three versions ago. The second is a small but genuine buff to Barrier's top tier.

Ember Lance T2 — Revert to Permissive Reading

The short version: v7.15.4 introduced a "strict reading" of Ember Lance T2 where the activation hit dealt no damage and only set the doubling primer. That was wrong. As of v7.15.7, T2 Ember Lance inherits T1's +4×PB fire damage on the activation hit AND sets the primer for the next MS hit against the same target. Same pattern as Glacial Spike → Snow Chains: T2 is strictly stronger than T1, not a sidegrade.

Why the revert: Every other Overload tier in the class is a strict ladder. Flare T0→T1→T2 stacks damage and upgrades the condition. Glacial Spike scales speed reduction downward. Concussive Surge adds Restrained then upgrades to Stunned. Mind Blast stacks damage and worsens conditions. The v7.15.4 "T2 replaces T1" reading was the only place in the class where a higher Overload tier was a strict replacement instead of an addition. That inconsistency made Ember Lance feel wrong and produced feel-bad example math (the L11 Pyro worked example showed Attack 2 dealing 9 fire after the player paid 1 Psi and 12 Blood Tax — a punishing return for what's supposed to be the class's high-tier damage feature).

The original rules text from before v7.15.4 was ambiguous — it didn't explicitly say whether T2 inherited T1's damage — and the permissive reading was the natural default. I over-thought the "what should T2 mean" question, declared the strict reading canonical, and broke the pattern. Reverting fixes the pattern.

What the feature text now reads:

Tier 2 Overload: The bonus fire damage from Tier 1 still applies on this hit. After this hit fully resolves, the next Manifested Strike hit against the same target before the end of your next turn has its Manifested Strike damage doubled (the strike itself only — rider damage is not doubled). This effect applies only once.

The first sentence is new. It was previously missing even from the v7.15.7 revert — the first pass reverted the "no additional damage" sentence but left the feature text silent on inheritance, which created a RAW gap where the DMQR and examples assumed one reading and the feature text didn't commit either way. This version closes that gap explicitly. The Pyro player sheet feature reference now opens with "T1 damage still applies on this hit" for the same reason.

What this means for Pyro play patterns: T2 Ember Lance is now a legitimate nova opener. You pay 1 Psi and 3×PB Blood Tax, you deal +4×PB fire on this hit, and you set up the doubling primer for your next MS against the same target. At level 11 that's 16 bonus fire on the activation hit plus a doubled follow-up MS (~27 avg) on the next hit against the same target. That's a real nova play that rewards commitment rather than punishing it.

If you were building on the v7.15.4 strict reading: your T2 Ember Lance damage goes up by 4×PB on activation hits. No nerf, only buff. Your Psi and Blood Tax costs are unchanged.

Barrier T2 — Adaptive Swap Mechanic

The short version: Barrier T2 no longer just extends the duration. It now also lets you swap your chosen effects on the fly.

Under v7.15.1 through v7.15.6, Barrier T2 was purely a duration increase — you spent 3 Psi and 3×PB Blood Tax to go from 1 minute to 10 minutes with the same two effects locked in for the entire window. Mechanically this was fine, but it didn't feel like a real T2 power spike. Compared to what "T2 Overload" means for every other feature in the class (a meaningful capability jump, not just a longer timer), Barrier T2 was underselling itself.

New T2 effect:

Tier 2 Overload: The duration increases to 10 minutes. While Barrier is active, you can use a bonus action to replace one of your chosen effects with a different one from the list; this swap costs no Psi and no Blood Tax. You cannot swap an effect to match one you already have active.

How it works in play:

• You activate Barrier T2 with your usual two effect picks. Say you open with Blade Shield and Spellward because the first room is a mix of martial guards and a caster.
• Halfway through the 10 minutes you walk into a second room with a fire elemental and a couple of ogres. You want Elemental Shroud (fire) to replace Spellward.
• On your turn, you use your bonus action to swap Spellward for Elemental Shroud. You pay nothing — no Psi, no Blood Tax. Blade Shield is still active, Elemental Shroud (fire) replaces Spellward, duration clock keeps ticking.
• A few rounds later a mind flayer shows up. You swap Blade Shield for Mental Bulwark using your bonus action. Now you're running Mental Bulwark + Elemental Shroud (fire) for the rest of the Barrier window.

Rules notes:

• One swap per bonus action. If you want to replace both of your effects, that's two turns of committed bonus actions. The swap competes with other BA uses (Phase Step, Vectored Thrust activation, Offhand Attack, etc.), so you're choosing each turn whether to reconfigure Barrier or do something else with your bonus action.
• No cost. No Psi, no Blood Tax. The bonus action itself is the cost.
• Duration keeps ticking during swaps. You don't get a fresh 10 minutes by swapping; the original timer runs out when it runs out.
• No duplicates. You can't swap Blade Shield for Blade Shield. The swap has to produce a different combination.
• Can't swap to unlock a third effect. You still have exactly two active effects at all times; swapping replaces, it doesn't add.

Why this matters: T2 is supposed to be the tier you pay big Blood Tax for and get something genuinely powerful in return. Before this patch, Barrier T2 was "longer T1," which was mechanically fine but emotionally unsatisfying — you were paying 3×PB Blood Tax (12 HP at level 11, 18 HP at level 20) for a timer extension and nothing else. Now you're paying for 10 minutes of adaptive defensive stance, which is a different class of tool. You get to read the encounter dynamically and reconfigure rather than locking in at activation.

The player sheet shorthand across all three disciplines now reads: "Duration becomes 10 min. BA to swap one effect for a different one (no Psi, no BT)."

Net Effect

Pyro players: T2 Ember Lance deals more damage than it did yesterday (reverts v7.15.4). This is a buff.

Anyone using Barrier: T2 Barrier is more flexible than it was yesterday (new BA swap mechanic). This is a buff.

Everyone else: unchanged.

This is the first v7.15 patch that contains a real mechanical buff (two of them, actually) rather than cleanup or clarification. The Pyro revert is a correction — the feature was supposed to work this way since before v7.15.4 — but the Barrier T2 change is a genuine capability upgrade.

Documents

Previous patches: v7.15.6 (Blood Tax timing clarification), v7.15.5 (Pyro sync pass), v7.15.4 (L20 examples + the now-reverted EL T2 strict reading).

Kinetic Vanguard by NixNinja. © 2024–present. Free for non-commercial use with credit.

Kinetic Vanguard v7.15.8 — Manifested Strike, Rewritten From the Carveout Up

A wording patch that's more important than it looks. No mechanical changes — every ruling the class has had since v7.14.1 still produces the same answer. What's different is the structure of the Manifested Strike feature text, which had been held together with scattered carve-outs and was starting to fray at the edges.

The Problem

Manifested Strike has always been an awkward feature to write. It needs to interact with ranged-weapon feats (Archery, Sharpshooter, Elven Accuracy) but it isn't actually a weapon — it's a psionic force projection formed from thin air. For a while the feature text tried to solve this by calling MS "a magical ranged weapon attack formed from psionic force" and then bolting on negative carve-outs for all the places where it wasn't really a weapon:

• A "counts as a ranged weapon for feats" clause.
• A "not a physical weapon (does not qualify for Divine Smite or Infusions)" clause.
• A separate Design Note — Feat Compatibility callout table elsewhere in the section, spelling out the Archery/Sharpshooter/War Caster interactions in more detail.

Three carve-outs. Two different places. A positive framing that was then selectively undone in multiple clauses. This worked, technically, but it kept bumping into RAW-pedant edge cases — a DM at a table could read one clause against another and get a different answer depending on which clause they anchored on. The Design Note callout and the feature text were saying overlapping things that almost matched but not quite. It was the kind of setup that invites table questions.

The Fix

Invert the framing. Instead of "MS is a weapon attack, except it isn't for these purposes," the new structure is "MS is its own thing, and here's what it counts as for specific purposes."

New feature text

Manifested Strike. When you take the Attack action, you can replace any number of your weapon attacks with a Manifested Strike. A Manifested Strike is a special ranged psionic attack with a range of 60 feet, formed from psionic force. Your Discipline determines its damage type. Add your Psionic Ability modifier to Manifested Strike damage. Your Manifested Strike attack bonus is your Psionic Ability modifier + your Proficiency Bonus + half your Proficiency Bonus (rounded down). On a critical hit, double all damage dice as normal. The damage die scales with Fighter level per the table in Section 01.

For the purposes of feats, fighting styles, and other features that reference ranged weapons or ranged weapon attacks, Manifested Strike counts as a ranged weapon attack. It is not a weapon, not a spell, and not an object.

Manifested Strike itself costs no Psi — you can always attack.

Note what the feature text is doing now. The first paragraph describes MS as what it is — a special ranged psionic attack — without pretending it's a weapon. The second paragraph is a single consolidated sentence that does all the rules-interaction work: it positively carves IN what MS counts as for feat purposes, and it negatively carves OUT what MS is NOT. Three clean categories: not a weapon, not a spell, not an object.

What each negative carve-out does

• "Not a weapon" blocks Divine Smite, Artificer Infusions, bag-of-weapons tricks, weapon attunement, and anything else that requires "a weapon" to exist as an object you're wielding. Also quietly blocks Crusher/Piercer/Slasher and Savage Attacker, because those all require "a weapon attack" and there's no weapon here.
• "Not a spell" blocks Counterspell, War Caster's reaction, Antimagic Field interactions, and anti-spell wards. MS is magical (it's psionic), but it's explicitly not casting a spell, so spell-targeting effects don't catch it.
• "Not an object" is new in v7.15.8. It blocks RAW tricks where a clever player argues that MS summons a psionic object that an opponent can grapple, disarm, target with Mage Hand, heat up with Heat Metal, or otherwise interact with via object-targeting features. MS is an attack, not a conjured thing. "Not an object" shuts the door on that whole vector.

What the positive carve-in does

"Counts as a ranged weapon attack for feats, fighting styles, and features that reference ranged weapons or ranged weapon attacks" explicitly preserves every interaction v7.14.1 locked in:

• Archery Fighting Style: +2 to attack rolls. Yes.
• Sharpshooter: -5/+10 power attack, no disadvantage at long range, no cover penalty. Yes.
• Elven Accuracy: reroll one advantage die. Yes.
• Crossbow Expert: no disadvantage in melee, bonus action attack. The first clause works; the bonus action attack is more of a judgment call because CBE specifies "a hand crossbow" as the weapon. A DM could rule this either way depending on how strictly they read the feat.
• Magic Initiate / Fey Touched / Shadow Touched: these give you spells, not weapon interactions, so they're unaffected by MS framing.

What Got Deleted

The Design Note — Feat Compatibility callout is gone. Its full contents (Archery + Sharpshooter + Elven Accuracy apply; War Caster explicitly doesn't because you're not casting spells) are now redundant with the feature text. Keeping both would have meant two places where a DM could look up the same ruling and potentially find slightly different wording. Now there's exactly one place.

The DMQR Common Rulings bullets about feat compatibility are unchanged — those are operational quick-reference, not duplicated rules text, and they're still useful at the table.

What Got Synced

All three player sheets had compressed MS shorthands that still used the old framing: "Magical ranged weapon attack, 60 ft (+½ PB to hit), [type] damage. Replaces weapon attacks..." Those now read:

Special ranged psionic attack, 60 ft (+½ PB to hit), [fire/cold/force] damage. Replaces weapon attacks on the Attack action. On a crit, double all damage dice as normal. Counts as a ranged weapon attack for feats/fighting styles. Not a weapon, not a spell, not an object.

The DM Quick Reference had one last holdover line in its Key Numbers table: "MS Range — 60 ft, magical ranged weapon." That was the final "magical ranged weapon" reference anywhere in the packet. It now reads "MS Range — 60 ft, ranged psionic attack." No more positive-framing ghosts.

Every doc in the packet now describes MS the same way. Main rules, all three discipline sheets, and the DMQR all agree: MS is a ranged psionic attack that counts as a ranged weapon attack for feat purposes, full stop.

Why This Matters Even Though Nothing Changed Mechanically

A wording patch that preserves every existing ruling might seem like busywork, but there's a real difference between "the rules produce the right answer if you read them carefully" and "the rules tell you the right answer with zero ambiguity." v7.15.8 moves MS from the first category to the second. A DM who has never seen the class before can now read the Manifested Strike feature text once and know exactly how it interacts with feats, spells, and object-targeting effects — without having to cross-reference a Design Note callout or reconcile multiple partially-overlapping clauses.

The other reason this matters is that the old structure was going to keep breaking as the rulebook grew. Every time a new feat or feature came out that referenced "ranged weapons" or "weapon attacks" or "spells" or "magic items," I'd have had to go back and check whether the MS carve-outs covered it and maybe add a new sub-clause. The new structure is self-contained: three negative carve-outs and one positive carve-in cover the entire rulebook surface area, not just the specific interactions I thought to enumerate.

This is the kind of patch that makes future patches simpler. That's worth a version bump.

Documents

Previous patches: v7.15.7 (Ember Lance T2 revert + Barrier T2 swap), v7.15.6 (Blood Tax timing clarification), v7.15.5 (Pyro sync pass).

Kinetic Vanguard by NixNinja. © 2024–present. Free for non-commercial use with credit.

v

Kinetic Vanguard v7.15.9 — Level 15 Optimal Attack Sequences

A player-facing addition. No rules changes. Each discipline player sheet now has a new section between the existing Level 10 and Level 20 sample turns: a four-row menu of pre-computed optimal turn sequences for level 15, with the math worked out so a player at the table can pick a pattern based on what the round demands instead of reverse-engineering optimal play under combat pressure.

This is the first net-new player-facing content addition since v7.15.0's Barrier rework. Everything between then and now has been clarification, cleanup, and one mid-stream design reversal.

What the Menu Looks Like

Each discipline gets the same four-row table:

Each row shows: the exact attack sequence, expected damage, Psi spent, Blood Tax incurred, and what saves/conditions get imposed. The Mini Nova row is paired with a Sustain followup line so players can see what a sustainable two-round burst looks like (Mini Nova this round, Sustain next round).

The Reasoning

The original sample turns on the player sheets were one-per-level: a single optimal nova at L10, a single optimal nova at L20. That worked when the class was simpler, but it left a real gap: a player at the table doesn't always want to nova. Sometimes they want to lock down a boss for a round, sometimes they want to coast and save Psi for the next encounter, sometimes they want to commit hard but preserve Action Surge for the real fight coming up. Showing only the nova turn implicitly said "this is how you play this discipline at this level," which produced two failure modes:

1. Analysis paralysis. Players who didn't want to nova had nothing to copy from, so they'd freeze trying to compute alternatives mid-combat.
2. Resource burn. Players who did copy the nova turn pattern every round ran out of Psi and HP fast, because the sample didn't make clear that nova was a once-per-fight tool, not a default.

The four-row menu fixes both. A player who wants to know "what's a good basic turn for level 15 Cryo" can read across all four rows in five seconds and pick. The numbers are right there.

Per-Discipline Highlights

I won't paste the full tables here (they're in the player sheets), but the high-level shape across disciplines:

Pyrokinesis — Highest single-target damage by a wide margin. Mini Nova hits ~119 average; Full Nova hits ~141 plus a persistent fire zone. The cost is steep — 8×PB Blood Tax on the nova turns, which is roughly 30% of typical L15 fighter HP. The footnote on the Pyro table says explicitly to keep Deflection Screen up when novaing.

Cryokinesis — Damage totals look low compared to Pyro/Psycho on paper (~32-50 average across most rows), but the value is in lockdown. A Stunned boss skips its turn entirely. The Full Nova adds Arctic Tempest for AoE coverage (up to 3 enemies for ~44 cold each). The Cryo table footnote calls this out so a reader doesn't see "32 damage" and assume the discipline is weak — it's not, it's just doing damage in a different currency.

Psychokinesis — The widest spread between options. Sustain and Control sit around ~32 damage, but Mini Nova jumps to ~81 single-target plus AoE force damage and a Prone save. Full Nova spikes to ~136 with TK Slam as the Action Surge capstone. The Psycho table notes that Full Nova spends 9 of 13 Psi — the heaviest commitment of any discipline — so a player going in knows they're emptying the tank.

Honest Math, Spelled Out

The footnote on every table reads:

Assumptions: PB 5, +5 PAM (Int/Wis/Cha boosted), all attacks hit, all saves fail. Hit chance at +12 to hit: ~80% vs AC 17 typical, ~70% vs AC 19 boss — multiply damage accordingly.

Two things worth saying about that:

First, "all attacks hit, all saves fail" is a deliberate choice. I considered baking a hit-chance multiplier into the headline damage numbers, but I went the other direction: give players the un-multiplied number and tell them what to multiply by. That way a player can apply their own multiplier based on their actual target's AC instead of having to reverse-engineer it out of a pre-multiplied headline figure. The 80%/70% reference points are spelled out so it's a single multiplication.

Second, the Blood Tax numbers are deliberately stark. 8×PB at level 15 = 40 HP self-damage. That's roughly 30% of a level 15 fighter's max HP. The tables don't soften that — if you're going to nova, you should know what you're spending, and the footnote on the Pyro table explicitly tells you to keep Deflection Screen up. A nova should feel like a real cost, not a free button-press.

What Got Assumed for AT III

Each discipline's L15 sequences need an Advanced Training III pick from the universal pool (Psychic Lance, Dazzle, Mind Blast, Gravitic Press, Barrier, or Concussive Surge). The tables make a default assumption per discipline:

• Pyro and Psycho: Mind Blast. Damage flexibility, scales well into the discipline's existing nova patterns.
• Cryo: Concussive Surge. Adds another Stunned-on-fail option that synergizes with the lockdown identity.

These assumptions are noted in the table subheader for each discipline. If a player picks differently (e.g., Barrier for defensive utility, Gravitic Press for AoE control), the Mini Nova and Full Nova rows would shift slightly — the sequences are presented as good defaults, not the only correct picks.

What This Doesn't Replace

The L10 and L20 sample turns are still on the player sheets. The L15 menu fits between them as a third reference point. The intent isn't to deprecate the L10/L20 examples — they're useful at their respective levels — but to give the level-15 player a more complete tactical menu than a single nova example.

If the format proves useful, the L20 section is a candidate for the same treatment in a future patch. For now, L20 stays as the single sample-turn-per-discipline format it's been in since v7.15.4.

Documents

Previous patches: v7.15.8 (MS feature text consolidation), v7.15.7 (Ember Lance T2 revert + Barrier T2 swap), v7.15.6 (Blood Tax timing clarification).

Kinetic Vanguard by NixNinja. © 2024–present. Free for non-commercial use with credit.

Kinetic Vanguard v7.15.10 — PAM Abbreviation Removed, L15 Table Polish

Two cleanup items. No mechanical changes.

PAM → Psi mod

The abbreviation "PAM" (Psionic Ability Modifier) has been removed from the packet. It collided with Polearm Master, which uses the same abbreviation across virtually every 5e optimization community, guide, and forum post. At a table where one player is running a Kinetic Vanguard and another is running a PAM/Sentinel build, every mention of "PAM" in the Kinetic Vanguard materials forced a double-take.

The replacement scheme is straightforward:

• In formulas and table cells where space matters: "PAM" becomes "Psi mod". Examples: "3d8 + Psi mod" instead of "3d8 + PAM", "Psi mod + PB + ⌊PB ÷ 2⌋" instead of "PAM + PB + ⌊PB ÷ 2⌋".
• In prose where there's room to be explicit: the full phrase "Psionic Ability modifier" replaces "PAM". Example: "Add your Psionic Ability modifier to passive Insight."
• The acronym table on all three player sheets no longer includes a PAM row. One fewer abbreviation to memorize.

"Psi mod" is short enough for damage formulas and table cells, long enough to be unmistakable, and impossible to confuse with Polearm Master.

Every document in the packet has been updated: the main rules, all three discipline player sheets, and the DM Quick Reference. Zero live PAM references remain anywhere.

L15 Table Followup — Visual Fix

The Level 15 Optimal Attack Sequences tables (added in v7.15.9) had a presentation bug: the "Mini Nova → Sustain" followup summary was a floating paragraph below the table that visually appeared to belong to the Full Nova row. A player reading fast would naturally assume the numbers under the table described what happens after a Full Nova, when they actually described a Mini Nova followed by a Sustain round.

Fixed by integrating the followup as an explicit table row labeled "→ Next round" positioned directly between Mini Nova and Full Nova. The table now reads:

1. Sustain
2. Control
3. Mini Nova
4. → Next round (Sustain followup — shows the two-round Mini Nova economics)
5. Full Nova

The arrow label and the "Mini Nova → Sustain pair" text in the Notes column make the relationship visually unambiguous. Full Nova now has nothing dangling under it.

Also in the Cryo table: "AT T0" in the Full Nova notes (which collided with "AT" meaning Advanced Training elsewhere in the packet) is now spelled out as "Arctic Tempest T0."

Documents

Previous patches: v7.15.9 (L15 optimal sequences), v7.15.8 (MS feature text consolidation), v7.15.7 (Ember Lance T2 revert + Barrier T2 swap).

Kinetic Vanguard by NixNinja. © 2024–present. Free for non-commercial use with credit.

Kinetic Vanguard v7.16.0 — Release Candidate, Plus One Capstone Buff

v7.16.0 marks the end of the v7.15.x patch series and the start of release-candidate quality. It's mostly a rollup of what the eleven v7.15.x patches accomplished, but there's one real mechanical change worth calling out up front.

Overload Mastery — True Nova

Previously (through v7.15.10): Overload Mastery was the 18th-level capstone feature that let you negate the Blood Tax from one declared Overload per short rest. If your attack package included a second Overload — say, a Tier 2 Manifested Strike with a Tier 1 rider on the same hit — you picked one to negate and paid the other's Blood Tax in full.

Now (v7.16.0): Overload Mastery negates the Blood Tax from every Overload declared during your entire turn, once per short rest. That includes your MS overloads, your rider overloads, any standalone Overloaded activations — and every Overload declared during a second Attack action gained through Action Surge.

No exclusions. No "first Attack action only." The whole turn is BT-free.

What this means in practice. Take a level 18 Pyrokinesis Vanguard going all-in. Attack action: three T2 MS hits with T2 Ember Lance on the first (primer), T1 Ember Lance on the second (cash in the doubling), and T1 Flare on the third. That's easily 8–10×PB in Blood Tax under normal rules. Then Action Surge into Firestorm T2 — another 3×PB.

Under the old Overload Mastery, you could shave off one of those Blood Tax instances and still eat the rest.

Under v7.16.0, you negate all of it. The entire turn — both Attack actions — runs at zero Blood Tax. You deal the full damage. You impose every condition. You take zero self-damage. Then the feature is spent until a short rest, and the next round you're back to paying full BT like everyone else.

This is the first net mechanical buff since v7.15.7 (which gave Barrier T2 its bonus-action swap mechanic). I want to be clear about why: the old wording was essentially "shave a little off one hit," and it never felt like an 18th-level capstone. Kinetic Vanguards get Overload Mastery at the same level a Bard hits Magical Secrets or a Wizard gets Spell Mastery. Those features read as capstone features — meaningful, game-shaping, something you remember you have. "Negate one Blood Tax instance" didn't read that way. "Run one full nova turn for free, including the Action Surge" does.

Everything else about Overload Mastery is unchanged. Overload effects (die steps, damage bonuses, conditions imposed) still apply normally — only the self-damage is negated. It's still once per short rest. You still choose to use it (it's not passive). The feature sits in the 18th-level Psionic Apex package alongside Mental Fortitude.

What the v7.15.x Series Accomplished

The v7.15.x series ran eleven patches. v7.16.0 inherits all of them:

• v7.15.0–2: Barrier redesign. Reactive Barrier was retired; the current five-mode Barrier replaces it with a proper pick-from-a-menu defensive stance.
• v7.15.3: Documentation sync pass. The DM Quick Reference had stale references going back eleven versions because my verification scripts were only parsing the main body XML and missing the header file.
• v7.15.4: Level 20 play examples rewritten. Action-economy bugs in the L20 sample turns got fixed. Also introduced an Ember Lance T2 "strict reading" that turned out to be a design mistake.
• v7.15.5: Pyrokinesis sync pass. Propagated the EL T2 clarification across all docs and recomputed example math.
• v7.15.6: Blood Tax timing clarification. BT fires when the feature fires, regardless of trigger type.
• v7.15.7: Ember Lance T2 reverted + Barrier T2 upgraded. The strict reading was a design mistake; reverted. Barrier T2 got a bonus-action adaptive swap.
• v7.15.8: Manifested Strike feature text consolidated. Carveout-foundation structure replaced scattered positive-then-negative framing.
• v7.15.9: Level 15 optimal sequences. Four-row attack-sequence menu added to each discipline's player sheet.
• v7.15.10: PAM abbreviation removed. Replaced with "Psi mod" to avoid the Polearm Master collision.

What "Release Candidate" Means Here

Not "frozen." If a real bug surfaces, if a table session reveals an unforeseen rules interaction, or if a future supplement creates a new edge case, those will get patched.

What it does mean: the packet has crossed a threshold where structural problems aren't expected to keep turning up. Documentation is synchronized across all five files. Worked examples have correct math. Sample turns are rules-legal. Abbreviations don't collide with common community terms. A DM picking up the DMQR behind the screen gets correct, current rulings.

What You Should Download

If you're already running v7.15.10 and don't play a level 18+ character: nothing changes for you in play. Update at your leisure.

If you're running a level 18+ Kinetic Vanguard: you get the Overload Mastery buff. Update your character sheet's Psionic Apex entry — the feature now covers your entire turn including Action Surge.

If you're new to the project: start here. v7.16.0 is the current build.

Documents

Thanks

This series of patches wouldn't be where it is without the outside reads and criticism that kept finding things I'd missed. The audit-gap catch, the action-economy callouts, the "revert didn't fully propagate" flag, the "followup line attached to the wrong row" observation, the PAM/Polearm Master collision, the "AT T0" shorthand collision — none of those would have been in my field of view without external feedback. That's the entire reason v7.16.0 feels ready. Solo design can get you to a workable draft; second pairs of eyes are what get you to a release candidate.

Kinetic Vanguard by NixNinja. © 2024–present. Free for non-commercial use with credit. Commercial use requires prior written permission.

Kinetic Vanguard v7.16.1

One mechanical change and a handful of sync fixes.

Overload Mastery Expanded

Overload Mastery (18th, Psionic Apex) used to negate the Blood Tax from one declared Overload per short rest. Now it negates all Blood Tax from every Overload declared during your entire turn, including a second Attack action from Action Surge.

Once per short rest, you pick a turn and go full nova with zero self-damage. Both Attack actions, every Overloaded MS, every Overloaded rider, every standalone Overloaded activation — all BT-free. Overload effects still apply normally. Next round, you're back to paying BT as usual.

The old version was a minor tax break. This version is a capstone.

Sync Fixes (v7.16.1)

• Main doc title header was still showing v7.15.10 from the version bump. Fixed.
• Changelog entry for v7.16.0 had contradictory language about Action Surge scope. Rewritten.
• DMQR Overload Mastery bullet standardized to match the player sheet wording.
• DMQR Deflection Screen row clarified — T2 now explicitly shows it inherits T1's reduction and adds the pushback.

No mechanical changes in v7.16.1 itself. These are all wording and consistency fixes on top of the v7.16.0 OM buff.

Documents

Previous patch: v7.15.10 (PAM removal).

Kinetic Vanguard by NixNinja. © 2024–present. Free for non-commercial use with credit.

Kinetic Vanguard v7.16.2

One mechanical change and one player-sheet addition.

Gravitic Press Reworked

The AT pool zone-control feature has been retuned. Two changes:

Speed halved while in zone (no save). This is a new baseline effect on top of the existing difficult terrain. Any creature inside the Gravitic Press zone has its speed halved for as long as it stays in the zone, no save required. Combined with difficult terrain, a creature in the zone spends 4 feet of movement per 1 foot of actual travel. The zone now punishes creatures for being in it even if they make every save.

Tier effects reordered. The old T0 (Prone) was too strong for a free effect — Prone grants advantage on melee attacks against the target, costs half movement to stand, and would have stacked brutally with the new speed-halving baseline. It belongs behind a Blood Tax paywall.

Same save trigger as before: when a creature enters the area for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there.

Mob Row Added to L15 Tables

The Level 15 optimal attack sequence tables on all three player sheets now include a Mob row between Control and Mini Nova. Each discipline handles groups differently:

Pyrokinesis has the only real AoE damage turn in the class. Fiery Blast T1 deals 3d8 + Psi mod fire to every enemy within 20 feet of the target, Dex save half, pushed 15 ft on fail. Combined with an Ember Lance T0 hit on the primary target, the turn deals ~42 single-target plus ~19 per enemy in the burst for 2 Psi and 5 BT.

Cryokinesis doesn't melt mobs — it pins them. Snow Chains T0 on the first target (speed 0, save vs Restrained) plus Glacial Spike T0 on the second and third targets (speed −5 auto, save for more). Three enemies debuffed in one Attack action for 2 Psi and zero BT. The damage total is ~32 across the three targets, but the value is in lockdown.

Psychokinesis scatters or collapses the group. Explosion/Implosion T0 on the first hit automatically pushes or pulls every enemy within 15 feet of the target by 15 feet (no save on the movement), with a Str save or Prone on top. One Psi, zero BT, and the entire cluster is rearranged.

Three disciplines, three mob answers. Pyro burns them down, Cryo freezes them in place, Psycho ragdolls them across the map.

Documents

Previous patch: v7.16.1 (Overload Mastery expansion + sync fixes).

Kinetic Vanguard by NixNinja. © 2024–present. Free for non-commercial use with credit.

Kinetic Vanguard v7.16.3

Two changes: Gravitic Press grounds flyers, Mind Blast targets Charisma instead of Wisdom.

Gravitic Press Grounds Flying Creatures

The zone-control AT pick now yanks flyers out of the air. A flying creature that enters the zone or starts its turn there falls to the ground, takes fall damage as normal, and cannot fly or gain a fly speed while inside the zone. No save on the fall itself — the zone's intensified gravity just wins.

This is a zone baseline effect alongside the speed-halving and difficult terrain. No Overload tier required. Pick Gravitic Press at AT III and you have a hard counter to flight from level 15 onward.

Mind Blast Save: Wisdom → Charisma

Mind Blast now targets Charisma instead of Wisdom. Charisma represents force of personality and strength of will — resisting a psionic assault that overloads the nervous system is an act of self-assertion, not perception. This also means Mind Blast targets a less common strong save. Wisdom is one of the best saves in the monster manual; Charisma is weaker on average, which makes Mind Blast land more often against the creatures it should land against.

Updated across all five docs.

Documents

Previous patch: v7.16.2 (Gravitic Press rework + Mob rows).

Kinetic Vanguard by NixNinja. © 2024–present. Free for non-commercial use with credit.

There have been several errata updates made to 7.16.3. If in doubt about rules currency, please check the post, fresh links were inserted in place of old ones, sorry for the confusion.

Thank you, ill have to try this

Please let me know how it goes, I want details. what discipline did you roll, what feats, what level, play notes, the whole bit. Thank you for your reply.

Your welcome :>

 Thank you and blessings for that. What Discipline did you roll? I cannot wait to hear back notes!

Just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge that this thread has crossed 4,500 views. That's a real number. I didn't expect that when I first posted.

Kinetic Vanguard started as a personal design experiment — I wanted a Fighter subclass that let mental-stat characters actually fight, not just cast spells with a weapon in hand. One design doc turned into five. One version turned into dozens of patch iterations. The class has been through AoE reworks, save-type swaps, action-economy rewrites, abbreviation retirements, and at least two changelog rewrites when the changelog itself became the bug.

A lot of that iteration happened because people here kept looking at it, kept finding things, kept asking "why does X work that way" or "this edge case breaks." Every time someone pointed at a rough spot, the class got a little sharper. The current v7.16.3 exists because of that. Solo design gets you a workable draft. Second pairs of eyes get you something worth handing to a DM.

So — thank you. Whether you read the original post and moved on, or pulled the packet into a home game, or caught a typo, or argued a ruling, you're part of why this thing is what it is.

The packet is still live. v7.16.3 is the current version. If you're new to the thread, welcome. If you've been here from the start, you've seen more iteration than I think anyone signed up for, and I appreciate your patience.

More to come, probably. Homebrew is never really finished.

— NixNinja