Erechel
Explorer
Absolutely nothing says that you get all effects of hungry, whatsoever. In fact, it hints just the opposite:"you don't need to eat, breath eand sleep": the times in which you have not to eat, you don't accumulate hungry, they don't count as days without eating. Let's suppose that you are crossing a desert, with a few scarce combats and skill challenges; asume you are a level 1 immortal. You walk for three days. You keep active your AB focus until you need other small bonus (let's say, an angry lion is lurking around): you switch to Bestial Form to gain Advantage on the Animal Handling check, then go back to AP in an instant. You have passed 1 minute interacting with the lion, that is the ammount of time in which hunger accumulates. You switch again to AB. You don't need to eat anymore, so the 1 minute is lost. Then you have to climb a cliff: you change your focus again to Brute Force. You climb for an hour or so with advantage (saying " you" to the rogue and the fighter, who are hungry and at disadvantage for exhaustion). You then change again to AB. Your comrades are fainting, they almost fall twice, and they are hungry again. You aren't. Then you reach a deep lake. You can, theoretically, grow gills for 2 pps and breathe water. Why should you? You keep AB going, so you don't even need to breath or swim. You aren't worried. You just walk below water, retrieve whatever you are looking for, and walk out of the water.I really like the mechanic of psychic focus and the flexibility to change with a bonus action. It isn't OP at all:
- What restrict the use of focus is the number of disciplines you can get, to make Adaptative Body focus useful, you need to take that discipline, and to many builds don't worth one of your few slots, even with that great focus.
-Still need a bonus action to change, and mystic have a billion use for bonus action
-In Adaptative Body case, when you change it, you'll get all effects of hungry, if you engage in a combat and want to change it, you need one bonus action to do that, again, you need to delay another bonus action use. Don't say anything about thirst too.
You haven't used a single PP, nor accumulated exhaustion. You then have to fight with a ing green dragon: the beast unleashes its powerful breath weapon... and you just walk away, because you aren't breathing. The dwarven fighter besides you is dying nevertheless, because its resistance cant stop the 70 poison damage he just received, he only could halve it to 35 (18 if the saving throw was succesful). You didn't even cough. And the last night you also made all shifts in the guard, replacing the elven druid, because you didn't needed to sleep (of course, the druid is dead because of the dragon's breath).
You even laugh, because you could use the PPs to fuel your other abilities (eg, smashing the dragon against a wall with your 2d10(+2)+1d6 claws, and stomping it against a wall at 10 feet for another 1d6, because you CAN use the three effects as once: an action, a bonus action and a reaction). You then walk to the sunset.
You just outperformed anyone in the party at level 1, even specialists, without needing even to use a single pp. If you use them to damage the dragon, you add insult to injury. Of course, if you need, you CAN use some PPs to outperform anyone else on survival only (did anyone say "swimming speed" and resistance to the extreme temperatures?). I just made something perfectly legal with the current rules. At level 1. You just pissed over the psi limits per effect, as you only had used different effects with different timings. You pissed over the very need of that. I didn't even bring the extra hit points and the Unarmored defense.
"It isn't broken if you can fix it" is the same to say "It is broken". It's a fallacy. Also, we are discussing psionics, not other races/classes. Of course there are some stupidly good options (Did someone say Figther/Death Cleric multiclass?), but here we are discussing something else.-Many disciplines with great focus don't have great use for PP, vice versa.
-Don't fit a campaing setting isn't an exclusive problem from mystic. Many other races/classes can be vetoed. I don't like Assess Foe, because I don't want to preset hp for some creatures, but I don't see any problem if they print this, I'll change in my table.
I did it. At level 1. And I did it again at level 16, for my own campaign. The disciplines are awfully abarcative: see for example Mastery of Force and add it to the immortal I've just made. Add the awfully big number of PPs (the same immortal, at level 11th with only those disciplines is doing 7d10+7d6+70 feet push for another 7d6+(Str)+1d8 (Potent Psionics): you are about 88 points of damage on average. God save your enemies if you crit. You just expended 1/3 of its PPs, and you also can give him 9 extra pps which doesn't count as concentration, for immunity to suffocation and fire for an hour and +2 to CA for tough hide (because we can), and a telekinetic barrier (because I need another discipline to have 4) . You are simply a monster. You can even go aggro, because falling below 0 don't kill you (although ends your AB), but you also gain temporary HPs every round. Go. Fight an adult golden dragon for yourself: you will probably kill it in a few rounds.make an exercise, a character concept at lvl 11, with 7 disciplines to choose (5 as Soul Knive), you'll see that you'll only get two or three usefull focus for that build. And you may have abdicated from another useful stuffs for that.
The fact is that Psychic Focus didn't even need to be there at all. It has no limits whatsoever, a bonus action is a tiny little thing, and most of the time, if you have minimal time of preparation, you can use whichever you want. In combat isn't as broken, but it is the ultimate survival character. He can survive naked in the moon mentally screaming "I can survive the extreme cold of the void, suckers".
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