XPH : Metamind revisited

green slime · Jul 11, 2004

Metamind is a problematical PrC. Very weak until they get the Font of Power, and then they level civilizations. Part of the problem lies with Schism and Quicken. Using the Font of Power, Quicken Power, and Schism, a 10th Psion / 10th Metamind can burn 390 power points in that 1 minute, and still have their full complement of power points afterwards.

On the other hand, the number of power points they have is remarkably low, for a PrC that is supposed to sacrifice high level powers for power points. As a base, the above character has 195 power points versus the standard 20th psion who has 343. He also has 1 (one) 8th level power, versus the psion's 6 (six) ninth level powers. He also has a given up on manifester levels. So the sacrifice is there, however, I do not feel it is... a comfortable one.

I suggest the following fix:

Level
1st: +1 level of power points, No additional Powers Known, No manifesting level
2nd: +1 level of power points, +1 level additional Powers Known, +1 manifesting level
3rd: +1 levels of power points, no additional Powers Known, No manifesting level
4th: +1 level of power points, +1 level additional Powers Known, +1 manifesting level
5th: +1 levels of power points, no additional Powers Known, No manifesting level
6th: +1 level of power points, +1 level additional Powers Known, +1 manifesting level
7th: +1 levels of power points, no additional Powers Known, No manifesting level
8th: +1 level of power points, +1 level additional Powers Known, +1 manifesting level
9th: +1 levels of power points, no additional Powers Known, No manifesting level
10th: +1 level of power points, +1 level additional Powers Known, +1 manifesting level

As well as adapting the Font of Power special ability:
Font of Power (Ps): A 10th-level metamind can act as a living cognizance crystal, opening a confluence point to the Astral Plane. His eyes shine like tiny stars, and faint illumination seems to beam out of his mouth and the end of each of his fingers. While so empowered, he gains access each round to number of power points equal to his manifester level. These must be used immediately or are lost. He can do this for a number of rounds per day equal to his class level. These rounds need not be used consecutively.

Well? Thoughts and Opinions?

Evilhalfling · Jul 12, 2004

I like the idea of revising this class, it is practically useless as written,
but you leave out the spcial ablities gained per level, the ones listed effectivley give free power points, although not enough to keep up.
If they dont then there is no reason to take levels - just for font of power?
If that is the case then why not use a 5 level class where you get more psp, but no manifester levels ?

level bonus points
1.............3
2.............5
3.............9
4.............2
5.............5
6.............2
7.............7
8.............2
9.............9
total bonus psp 63
do they get these bonuses on top of normal psp progression?
I like your new font of power (yoink)

Thanee · Jul 12, 2004

green slime said:
Part of the problem lies with Schism and Quicken. Using the Font of Power, Quicken Power, and Schism.

Well, you could start with removing Quicken Power and Schism... they both do not belong into a 3.5 rulebook, anyways.

Well? Thoughts and Opinions?

If I understand it right (maybe not), what's the point of this?

You lose 5 levels of manifester ability (tho retain the power points) only to get the Font of Power at level 10?

That hardly strikes me as a good deal.

(I cannot check the XPH right now, does the Metamind get any other abilities maybe?)

Bye
Thanee

green slime · Jul 12, 2004

Thanee

from the SRD:
METAMIND
Hit Die: d4.

Requirements
To qualify to become a metamind, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.
Skills: Knowledge (psionics) 8 ranks, Psicraft 4 ranks.
Feat: Psicrystal Affinity.
Psionics: Manifester level 4th.

Class Skills
The metamind’s class skills are Autohypnosis (Wis), Concentration* (Con), Craft (any) (Int), Knowledge (psionics), and Psicraft (Int).
Skill Points at Each Level: 2 + Int modifier.

Table: The Metamind
Level Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Ref Save Will Save Special Powers Known
1st +0 +0 +0 +2 Free manifesting 1st, 3/day —
2nd +1 +0 +0 +3 Cognizance psicrystal 5 points +1 level of existing manifesting class
3rd +1 +1 +1 +3 Free manifesting 2nd, 3/day —
4th +2 +1 +1 +4 Cognizance psicrystal 7 points +1 level of existing manifesting class
5th +2 +1 +1 +4 Free manifesting 3rd, 1/day —
6th +3 +2 +2 +5 Cognizance psicrystal 9 points +1 level of existing manifesting class
7th +3 +2 +2 +5 Free manifesting 4th, 1/day —
8th +4 +2 +2 +6 Cognizance psicrystal 11 points +1 level of existing manifesting class
9th +4 +3 +3 +6 Free manifesting 5th, 1/day —
10th +5 +3 +3 +7 Font of power +1 level of existing manifesting class

Class Features
All the following are class features of the metamind prestige class.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Metaminds gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor.
Powers Known: At every even-numbered level, a metamind gains additional power points per day and access to new powers as if he had also gained a level in whatever manifesting class he belonged to before he added the prestige class. He does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained (bonus feats, metapsionic or item creation feats, and so on). This essentially means that he adds the level of metamind to the level of whatever manifesting class the character has, then determines power points per day, powers known, and manifester level accordingly.
If a character had more than one manifesting class before he became a metamind, he must decide to which class he adds the new level of metamind for the purpose of determining power points per day, powers known, and manifester level.
Free Manifesting (Ps): At 1st level, a metamind can manifest any 1st-level power he knows for free (without spending power points) three times per day.
At higher levels, a metamind gains the ability to freely manifest additional higher-level powers: three 2nd-level powers per day at 3rd level; one 3rd-level power per day at 5th level; one 4th-level power per day at 7th level; and one 5th-level power per day at 9th level.
This benefit applies only to the power point cost of an unaugmented power. Points spent to augment a power and an experience point cost (if any) must be paid as normal.
Cognizance Psicrystal (Ex): At 2nd level, a metamind masters the trick of storing excess power points in a psicrystal. The psicrystal is now treated as a cognizance crystal capable of storing 5 power points, in addition to its psicrystal abilities. At every even-numbered level, a metamind becomes able to store an additional 2 power points in his psicrystal, to a maximum of 11 points at 8th level.
Font of Power (Ps): A 10th-level metamind can act as a living cognizance crystal, producing seemingly endless power points once per day, for up to 1 minute. His eyes shine like tiny stars, and faint illumination seems to beam out of his mouth and the end of each of his fingers. While so empowered, he can manifest any of his powers without drawing from his power point reserve. He finds the power points he needs welling up within his own body.
If a metamind using this ability enters a metaconcert, his power point reserve is accessed normally for the purpose of his contributing to the pool.

I was proposing a change to two things: The number of power points granted (full development rather than just ½). And the Font of Power special ability. All other aspects of the class would remain unchanged.

green slime · Jul 12, 2004

Evilhalfling said:
I like the idea of revising this class, it is practically useless as written,
but you leave out the spcial ablities gained per level, the ones listed effectivley give free power points, although not enough to keep up.
If they dont then there is no reason to take levels - just for font of power?
If that is the case then why not use a 5 level class where you get more psp, but no manifester levels ?

level bonus points
1.............3
2.............5
3.............9
4.............2
5.............5
6.............2
7.............7
8.............2
9.............9
total bonus psp 63
do they get these bonuses on top of normal psp progression?
I like your new font of power (yoink)

The reason I opted for a +1 level of power points and a 10th level character class progression was two fold.

1) Because the amount of power points granted should be useful whether you enter this class as a 5th level psion or a 15th level.

2) In order to change as little as possible about the class with regards to existing characters. To do otherwise, you may as well give the PrC another name to avoid confusion.

Destil · Jul 12, 2004

I like the PP progression as if you're in your base class. Really, I'd add bonus power points as well (and ditch the extra free powers, just add power points. More flexible and easier to track).

1 Base +5
2 Base +10
3 Base +15
4 Base +20
5 Base +27
6 Base +34
7 Base +41
8 Base +48
9 Base +57
10 Base +66

The base reflects the power points gratned from your original class: add levels of metamind to your original class to determine power points per day, then add bonus power points as shown (these numbers are not cumulitive, a 2nd level metamind has base + 15 power points / day, not base + 10 + 15).

I might add one or two other special abilities too, like mabye a bonus feat at some of the levels without manifester level increases. The class sacrifices a lot already. Mabye treat your primary ability score as if two points higher for granting bonus PP at some level or something...

Thanee · Jul 12, 2004

Yep, more PP seems like a better idea than just having some free manifestations.

Bye
Thanee

Evilhalfling · Jul 13, 2004

The flavor of free manifestations makes you more like arcane classes - ie I burned all my psp but I can sill use a psionic charm (1st lvl) or animal affinity - the metamind seems less likely to burn our quickly by using heavily augmented powers.
Example :
I ran a 10th lvl blue against my players - 101 psp (24 for before the battle- 9-10 per round until reaching 15 psp - then that lasted 5 more rounds) I could see the attraction for just 1-2 free uses of something.

btw vigor? still broken. he took 130 dmg - as a mage type - and survived.

green slime · Jul 13, 2004

Well, originally I toyed around with giving the Metamind +2 levels of power points every odd level, interspersed with +1 level of power points every even level. So that after 10 levels, a metamind would have gained +5 levels of power points, and lost 5 manifester levels.

The trouble was it become a nightmare trying to calculate what the levels 16-20 would look like if he returned to Psion. It became unwieldy. Destil's suggestion is a good one, except I'm beginning to have doubts about giving even more power points to the Metamind.

If you just throw more power points at the Metamind, it becomes very dangerous. This is with a mind towards Epic levels. Part of the idea is that the metamind can manifest more lower level powers. The 33 "extra-but-alotted" power points alleviate that problem, without really restricting the metamind, after all, he still has +11 from the coignanze crystal, and the revised font of power grants his manifester level in power points each round for 10 rounds.

High level psions already have so many power points they basically are not going to run out of them, even if they use and re-use their highest level powers each and every combat. By giving free usage of low level powers, they are gaining a large number of power points: there are lots of opportunities for low level powers in every game: detect psionics, call to mind, cat fall, force screen. 343 power points +50 (min 20 Int) = 393 / 20 = 19 9th level powers augmented ... that is almost 1½ 9th level spells in 13 encounters, per day...

The metamind will instead be using 393 /15 (max manifester level at 20th character level) = 26 8th level powers, +10 from font of power, so a total of 36 8th level powers (or lesser powers augmented) enough for nearly 3 per encounter, and then he is epic level after a single day adventuring.

And yes, vigor has always been nasty.

I'll present my ideas on how a metamind's Epic level progression may appear at the weekend.

XPH : Metamind revisited

green slime

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Evilhalfling

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Thanee

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green slime

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green slime

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Destil

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Thanee

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Evilhalfling

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green slime

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