Psionic Manifester + Ardent = cheese

[Psion]

In another thread, this was posted.

For what it's worth, I don't think Practiced Manifester, as written in the Complete Psionics, is legitimate. If you read the wording carefully, it is a clear cut-and-paste job of Practiced Spellcaster. Which means that Practiced Manifester was written without Psionics rules and it's nusances that makes it stand apart from traditional Vancian spellcasting. It's balance is questionable, and leaves questions hanging: for example, the feat says it does not increase the number of PPs you gain, then says that it increases manifester levels for all other purposes. But the bonus PPs you gain from high Intelligence is based on manifester levels... so which is it?

I agree. They were pretty sloppy about this feat. Look at the wording. They even use the phrase "powers per day", which is meaningless. The feat was not thought through.

What drew my attention to this was a bit of cheese suggested by someone over on the Psionics board over at WotC - one poster (and even tempest's "FAQ") was that due to the poor choice of words for the ardent's powers known paragraphs. The ardent can learn any power he can pay for, and technically, he can pay for powers with a power point cost equal or less than his manifester levels. Which leads to some bent cerebremancer builds, a class that previously I had not considered in any way overpowered. (And, as rystil points out in the thread I pulled Solarious' quote from that this feat is especially good for cerebremancer, since they have enough slop in their spells that bleeding power points is not a big hit for them.)

So, congrats, WotC psionics boards (and WotC development team is not blameless). It's no pun-pun, but still, one more feather in the cap of power gamers everywhere.

(Sane DMs will, of course, plug this loophole with a vengeance.)

 

[Bacris]

Don't blame the psi board Blame Bruce and Chris for not properly thinking through Practiced Manifester... and the horrible editting of CPsi.

It's really not a HUGE deal, because of the lost levels - sure, you get the bonus PP by RAW, but the majority of your ardent power points are from ardent levels, not bonus PP.

Nice, but not really great.

 

[Psion]

Don't blame the psi board Blame Bruce and Chris for not properly thinking through Practiced Manifester... and the horrible editting of CPsi.

I don't blame the psi board in general.

I blame the cheesemeisters. The sort that turn nice "one bennie" concept feats or PrCs into combo-makers. These are the sorts of players that create skittish DMs who think that psionics (or whatever else) sucks making life more difficult for more well meaning players who want to just play a cool character using the new material.

The same player has also just suggested the old "precocius apprentice" angle at bypassing Cerebremancer level requirements, and tacking slayer onto the build. Mmmm... 3 cheese combo.

 

[Enforcer]

Yep, while that sort of thing may be an entertaining intellectual exercise (if not to me), DMs need to learn to be more comfortable with the Banhammer +5.

 

[Heinrich Krebs]

I'm not quite sure if "Practeiced Manifester" war erratad, but the way it is written on dndtools.net it explicitly states, that the bonus to the manifester level does not affect the powers per day and powers known.

So, reading the Ardent on dndtools.net there is a section names "powers known" and a table column named "powers known". Both those contain information not affected by "practiced manifester", right ?

So, I argue, that for adding a new power to the powers know, the ardent must qualify (be able to manifest the power) without the benefit "Practeiced Manifester".

Other opinions ?