Does the ardent make your head hurt?

[RangerWickett]

Am I the only person who has trouble understanding how to use an ardent? (Or battlemind, or psion?) Their augmentable powers seem so fiddly as to be practically useless, and the way they change with different expenditures of power points is non-intuitive. Why, when I spend a PP, does the power stop doing one thing and do an unrelated thing instead?

Monks, they're awesome. But the other psionic classes don't seem like they'd be worth the mental strain it would take to play them, even if their powers were balanced with other classes.

I want to see Essentialized versions of them all. Ardents could get various auras they could switch between at will, as well as basic attacks and some minor augmentations they could deploy to their own or their allies' attacks, sort of like using power strike for a knight or slayer.

Battleminds and Psions I don't know well enough to model new versions, but I think they could be done without dailies, to provide a sort of 'magic' option for people who want everything to be encounter-based.

 

[MerricB]

I've been playing an ardent from levels 1-7 so far, and it's an incredibly fun and effective character. It was helped massively by the article in Dragon 395 which gave it at will attacks that can become basic attacks (Intent Laid Bare).

A brief summary of the character:

Lanharath, Kalashtar Ardent 7
HP 58, AC 24, Fort 19, Ref 17, Will 20

Intent Laid Bare:
0: (basic): +12 vs AC, 1d10+6, target can't shift
1: +12 vs AC, 1d10+6, target can't shift and -2 to attack
2: +12 vs AC, 2d10+6, target can't shift, -2 to attack, and if target moves, you or ally can shift 1 square adjacent.

Energizing Strike:
0: +12 vs AC, 1d10+6, ally gains 7 temporary HP
1: +12 vs AC, 1d10+6, dying ally gains 4 HP
2: +12 vs AC, 2d10+6, you or ally spends a healing surge

Mindlink Strike:
0: Adjacent ally may attack as opportunity action
1: As above, and +3 damage if marking opponent
2: Close Burst 1, +12 vs AC, 1d10+6, and one ally adjacent can attack it as an opportunity action

Those are my at-wills/augments. I'm in a group with all strikers except for me, so I am often in the defender roll (Intent Laid Bare), or helping the strikers kill things quicker (Mindlink Strike) or occasionally just keeping them alive (Energizing Strike).

It really has been a blast to play. Most of the time, I just stick with the non-augmented effects, saving my PP for the better forms of Energizing Strike if needed. (The Augment 1 version is awesome).

Cheers!

 

[Dice4Hire]

I find the psionic classes easy enough to play, though I do think that at higher levels spamming augmented 1st level at-wills is totally broken. But easy enough to fix by scaling at-will pp costs.

Jsut think of each different augment level as a different power and it works better. Also, most powers have one sucky augmentation, so just ignore it.

Overall it is about the same as a character with at-wills and encounters.

But no essentials, for the love of the higher being. That has srewd up enough already. It is time for essentials to break new ground, not keep retreading what came before.

 

[Incenjucar]

Ardents are splendid and I wish someone would play one in my groups - I may eventually do so myself.

They're basically anime protagonists.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I wrap my mind around it as above: the "Augmented" versions of the power is just a completely different power, distantly related to the first. An "encounter-power" version, you might say.

I've futzed with an ardent. It might help if you envision it as spending PP before the power is activated, each PP providing a sort of amorphous wellspring of power that the psionic character then shapes. Different reserves yield different powers.

 

[Mummolus]

I've got a level 12 ardent in a home campaign and have enjoyed every second of it thoroughly. They're an interesting class that can excel at a number of different things - mine for example is wielding a greatspear and focuses on healing powers.

Should probably mention that I play a battlemind in a different campaign and really enjoy that one too. The psionic powers grant a certain flexibility - the augment 2's are effectively encounter powers that you can use multiple times if you so desire.

 

[On Puget Sound]

He attacks your mind. Your head is supposed to hurt.

 

[Obryn]

I think the power point system needs some serious work. Honestly, though, it doesn't get bad until Epic levels when stuff starts costing 6 PPs.

Anyway, I'd say you should mostly ignore anything that costs more than 2 pps when evaluating powers. The higher-tier effects - with few exceptions - are just too darn expensive.

On a much more personal level, I pretty much hated everything about Ardents and Battleminds at first. After seeing both in play, I kinda love them now. Ardents are a seriously strong leader that can fill any of the main roles easily, with enough flexibility to be worth two leaders much of the time. Battleminds just break my strategies in half. Lightning rush is an abomination (in a good way).

-O

 

[Unwise]

I made up an ardent, started to play it, but just mucked around and levelled up to 12 to find that I was still using the same attacks as level 1.

My best ability was a mainstat + half level THP attack. It could be scaled up with 2PP to spend a healing surge. The problem was that nothing really compared to that. When somebody was dazed or weakened, I used the saving throw ability, but ongoing damage had to be 15 or more for a saving throw to be much more useful than just giving them 12THP and telling them to suck it up.

I ended up not playing the character anymore because although it was very effective, it was a bit boring using the same powers from 1 to 12. I really look forward to upgrading abilities, so don't use essentials characters much.

P.S. I guess the point is, that to me the ardent seems as simple as an essentials character. Sure he has lots of options, but you only care about the three at-will powers that you have, of those you only ever use one or two in most encounters. Of those, you only every use the 2PP option in most instances. Some of their abilities are so obscure that you simply ignore them entirely.

 

[Obryn]

Yeah, Ardents frankly have no real reason to upgrade from any of those Level 1 At-Wills. You have a fully capable Leader suite there, including heals and temp HPs, granted saves, granted attacks, and even some tough debuffs. There are some direct upgrades to a few of them - but most of them aren't enough of an upgrade to offset the increased PP costs.

I agree - it is potentially boring. It's one of the reasons I think Humans have a leg up. Sure, they can't boost their extra At-Will, but for something like Focusing Strike or Ire Strike, it's not a huge loss.

Another thing to keep in mind... More than most other classes, Psionic power-point classes are reliant on their Dailies and their Utilities to add some interest. You can't be stingy with them. Doing the same three things over and over again can get old for experienced players.

-O