Psionic Combat

[Dark Psion]

Here is TimeWasters site:http://www.geocities.com/zyxabc2001au/pdf.htm

His version uses effects instead of Ability damage and no charts. Also, there are new attack/defense modes based of the other disciplines.

 

[dagger]

Yea we used that system for 1st Edition Psionic combat back in the day.

Someone on these boards posted an idea for psionic combat using cards in which the player and DM each pull a card for the attack or defense that they want to use and then flip it over and compare. I thought this was a great idea and made up cards for myself and my player who has a psion and it works great. Each card has a one sentence description of the damage it deals or hardness it provides and a list of DC modifiers relative to the other attacks/defenses. If someone wants to see them, let me know and I'll email you.

I also allow my player's psion to have a pool of Psionic Combat Points seperate from his normal Power Points. So far I've been allowing the same amount in both pools but he's only at second level. As he goes up, I may very well consider scaling down the number of PCPs relative to PPs, depending on how things work out. Vaxalon's idea of three free activations may be a better solution, although I haven't had any problems yet.

 

[Johno]

My major cheese with the Psionics combat system is three-fold:

1. that the "deadliness" goes down as the opponents increase their Will saves. There is no efficient way for a psionicist to increase his Attacks DC other than increasing the associated Attribute Score.
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   • that psionic monsters get free attacks/defenses and manifestations, making psionic combat with them for the purpose of reducing their ability to cause damage pointless.[/list=2]
     
     • A psionic character facing 8 mind flayers pays through the nose to keep raising defenses, as a defense must be raised to meet every attack.[/list=3]
       
       So to combat these problems I have the following solutions:
       
       a. Monsters in general do not recieve unlimited amounts of power points for attacks and defenses. Certain powers may be generated at will, but in general, monsters abide by the same rules as psionic characters.
       
       b. Heighten Psionic Attack ;
       Prerequisites: Psions only.
       Benefit: You may expend extra power points while manifesting a psionic attack, to increase the Will save DC of your attack. Additional power points invested into the attack cause the Will save DC to increase 1 for each 2 power points the attack is heightened. You may spend no more on your attack in total than your level -1, including the cost for the psionic attack. Thus a 10th level psion may not heighten a mind blast attack at all, but he may heighten a Mind thrust attack by spending up to 8 power points (thus increasing the Will save DC +4).
       
       c. Trigger Psionic Defense;
       You may attempt to trigger psionic defenses for free.
       Prerequisite: Inner Strength, Talented, reserve power points (varies)
       Benefit: From now on you can attempt to trigger a defense mode without paying its cost. To trigger a defense mode, you must first satisfy the requirement of power point reserve equal to or greater than what it would normally cost you to manifest. Then make a Constitution check. If you meet or exceed the Constitution check DC (see below), the defense mode is manifested normally with no power cost. If you fail the check, you are forced to pay its cost, but the defense mode is still manifested normally.
       DCs for the ability check are determined by power point cost: 1, 13; 3, 15; and 5, 17.
       
       I'm starting to feel that Heighten Psionic Attack should have been part of the Psion class abilities to start with...
       
       But I should point out I do not allow the Resculpt Mind feat, or the Power Chain feats.

 

[Hejdun]

If you are just trying to kill what you are fighting (which is a lot of the time), then psionic combat is a waste. Why do 1d2 Wisdom damage instead of 5d6 real damage?

Against other psionic creatures (particularly monsters), it's more of a vulnerability than an advantage. You might be able to hit your opponent for a couple dex damage, but he could really weaken you at the same time. That dex damage you dealt to the monster probably didn't do much to him, however YOU are down half your PP for the day, and it will take a week to recover all the temporary ability score damage you took. A major pain in the rear.

 

[Garmorn]

If you are just trying to kill what you are fighting (which is a lot of the time), then psionic combat is a waste. Why do 1d2 Wisdom damage instead of 5d6 real damage?

Against other psionic creatures (particularly monsters), it's more of a vulnerability than an advantage. You might be able to hit your opponent for a couple dex damage, but he could really weaken you at the same time. That dex damage you dealt to the monster probably didn't do much to him, however YOU are down half your PP for the day, and it will take a week to recover all the temporary ability score damage you took. A major pain in the rear.

While this is true for a psion it is even worst for a physic warrior.

I have been thinking about removing psion combat and giving psion bonus feats like wizards and physic warrior psicrystales.

 

[Jin Chi]

Psionic Combat is pretty much worthless.

Vs. that same Psionic opponent, the wizards and sorcerors will be doing many d6 of fire and lightning damage, the fighter types will be hacking and slashing them to bits, and what is the Psion going to contribute? 1d2 of some random ability drain. Assuming you can even get past their Psionic defenses.

Why would I ever bother?

Against a Psionic creature being psionic is actually more of a liability than anything else. Hey, look at how nicely I've opened and exposed my brain for you.....

Against a non-Psionic creature it is even worse. Watch me burn out all my PSPs to stun you for 1d2 rounds. Assuming I can get past the nasty bonuses you get for being non-Psionic.

Hopefully your Psion has selected an interesting offensive power or two along the way.

Jaime

 

[Cyrian]

Athas.org has come up with their own alternate psi combat system for DS3 called Harbringers, where basically the psion manifests some sort of monster/shape/whatever that only the victim can see, and has various powers it can use, as well as just physical attacks (although they only do subdual damage) It's really quite good.

 

[Vaxalon]

When they wrote this version, I'm sure the authors were informed that they had to retain certain sacred cows, that is, attack modes and defense modes.

Any replacement system needs to be roughly as balanced as the existing system, and needs to be roughly compatible, or else all of the psionic monsters would have to be redone.

 

[SableWyvern]

I checked out TimeWaster's stuff, and, at a quick glance, it looks fairly promising. Certainly, it seems to deal with a lot of the problems mentioned on this thread.