General Psion question

[Henry]

LadyDM, if you are using the Expanded Psionics Handbook (whose rules are duplicated in the SRD on www.wizards.com), then a psion will integrate well into a party. The only things to watch out for are a few powers that have not been edited for mistakes, but a lot of DM's watch for. In particular, watch out for ANY Psionic Power that increases the saving throw by 1 for every additional power point spent (Energy missile is one example). Powers can scale upwards now, in the new rules, but a psion who blows all his power scaling things upwards can quickly run out of power.

Having just come out of an Eberron Campaign with two psionic characters in it, I can say that the rules work very well, and with those minor edits I did not have a problem with any of them. It's worth trying out to see if they fit your campaign (as I said, the rules are available online for free), and if on the off chance your player stumbles into an overpowering ability or combo, you can work with him or her to alter the character to fit.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I have a player that wants to play a psion. I am not very familiar with the class and have had limited experience with other PC psions.

You need to familiarize yourself with psionics quickly. Unfortunately one too many DMs have had psion players pull an illegal trick on them, causing them to think psionics are unbalanced.

Note that wizards have balance problems, and so do psions. Feel free to "put on hold" anything that looks way too good. It probably means it is, or you read it wrong. I would suggest putting Energy Missile and Fission on hold immediately.

You probably don't want to allow the elan or any of the races from the monster section (eg the blue) until you're comfortable with the rules. (And because it will come up, the blue has an LA of +0 in one place and +1 in another. It's +1, according to errata.) Actually, read the errata. Don't run the game beforehand!

IMO (and I may be challenged on this) but Telepathy is one of the weakest disciplines. Too many powers have a duration of Concentration and too many require you to be high level before you can use them on anything other than humanoids

The only other thing you'll need to deal with are psionic items. Most of the time I simply don't find the items worth it, but feel free to add psionic flavor (eg a crown of intellect rather than a headband of intellect). Well, I think a crown is flavorful.

PS a wizard using Dominate Monster or Person could have done the exact same thing to a barbarian. Mind-affecting stuff is always scary.

I've run and played in games with psionics. I've had few problems, but that's mainly because I know the psi-rules.

 

[EricNoah]

Here's a direct link to the psionic rules: http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/theraven_stephenh/psionic/

 

[Jdvn1]

In my experience, if you run the Psionics Are Different variant, then it can cause problems.

 

[Thanee]

It depends a bit on the game you run. Most importantly, the number of encounters per day plays a huge role there, since Psions have the power and the potential to completely wreak havoc unless their PP expenditure must be extremely carefully considered (i.e. if you often have multiple encounters in a day, where the manifestation of a power or three would be necessary, the Psion would be well adviced to not blast about at full power).

A good "benchmark" is the Sorcerer class. If in your games you feel, that the Sorcerer is underpowered and rather weak compared to the other classes, then the Psion will probably integrate just fine. If the Sorcerer is about the same level as a Wizard or Cleric in your games, then the Psion might be too powerful at moderate to high levels.

If you generally play at lower levels, there will be very little problems. It gets "worse" the higher the level, as with all the spellcasting classes. Psions are just a bit more extreme on this behalf.

It also depends a bit on the player in question. A fairly responsible person would probably cause little problems.

If you are yourself not familiar with the psionics rules at all and the player does not insist on playing a Psion or you really want to add the psionics flavor to your campaign, maybe it's better to simply not use them for now (until you had time to familiarize yourself with them better), because the psionic rules are different to the standard magic rules in quite a few partially rather subtle parts. So you basically need to learn a completely new subset of rules to work them in properly. That might simply not be worth the hassle, apart from their flavor, psionics do not really add anything to the game, just yet another sort of "spellcasting".

Bye
Thanee

 

[abri]

Psion actually play diferently than other spell-casting class: with the right combo of feats they can manifest power of higher "real level" than they should have access too. But if they start doing that they'll expend their power point reserve in a single combat or close to it. Psion tend to be better at inflicting direct damage over all, but there are some other nasty powers
Warning:
1)don't consider astral construct as another summon monster, the creature created are tough and can hit really hard for the level they are summoned at, especially with boost construct feat. At high level no big deal, but at low level with overchannel, can create some nasty surprise.
2)several powers have DC that increase by 1 per PP, consider all of those a typo and make it 1/2PP.
Hope this help

 

[Psion]

Anyone else thought the capital P meant she was summoning Psion?

I considered the possibility...

 

[Jdvn1]

Yeah, I was just waiting for you to post...

 

[Ravellion]

I'd say the rules are balanced. I also like the flavour of Psionics. Still, I don't use psionics in the game I run. As a DM, it's just one more thing you need to keep track of, and as I am a "wing it" kind of DM, I found that I couldn't "wing" psionics, or ways to deal with them. Only if a player really wanted to use Psionics, I'd let him though.

However, one more thing: Does your player actually wants to play a Psion, or does he find the Power Point mechanic interesting? If the latter, you might consider using the Spell Point rules in Unearthed Arcana instead. This would give the player what he wants, but means you don't have to learn how to deal with a variety of new powers.

Rav

 

[LadyDM]

However, one more thing: Does your player actually wants to play a Psion, or does he find the Power Point mechanic interesting? If the latter, you might consider using the Spell Point rules in Unearthed Arcana instead. This would give the player what he wants, but means you don't have to learn how to deal with a variety of new powers.

Rav

He want's to play one because the last DM we had made them IMHO overpowerfull and he wants the power. he also wanted his fighter to be able to use a bastard sword with one hand. he's a powermonger and I have to keep him in line with the rest of the party.