Psions are Broken

[Zerovoid]

I agree that psions are very broken. They get even fewer powers than sorcerors, making them very little fun to play at low levels. They get less power points than a wizard. There spells don't scale, so if you think white fire is good at 1st level, it will be completely useless by 5th. Unlike magic missile. Psionic combat is too weak to be effective, since will saves increase, but psions never get better at it. Those things are too weak.

Mind blast is too powerful. It medium levels, it can effectively kill all the monsters in a fight, and the non-psionic buffer is more of a hinderance than a help. Alot of the telepathic powers are also too powerful, Mind Switch allows you to take someone's body, and then kill them in your body, thus gaining an unbalancing set of physical stats, unless the DM steps in. This should be more of a temporary thing like magic jar.

My reccomendation is to play a telepath. Kind of weak to begin with, untlil they get Lesser Domination and Mindblast. From then on you will rock.

Or, you get get If Thoughts Could Kill. It fixes alot of the underpoweredness of the psion class. And check out the Mind's Eye section of the WOTC website. There's some useful material there.

 

[Varius]

Where do you find "If thoughts could kill"?

 

[Darkness8Me]

Where do you find "If thoughts could kill"?

www.montecook.com/mpress.html

It's available as an Adobe .pdf for $5 or in print for $10. The .pdf doesn't have the variant prestige classes in it, but they are available for free download.

 

[Varius]

Thank you

 

[Varius]

Sorry, double post and my computer is messing up

 

[Jin Chi]

If Thoughts Could Kill

I bought and downloaded ITCK today and took a look at it.

These fixes are pretty timid.

The aforementioned 8th Level Psion (forgetting bonus points) gets 1 (!) extra power point, 2 extra 0 level powers and 1 extra 1st level power.

That, and they get to pick 2 other disciplines that use the same save bonus and ability to manifest as their primary discipline.

The scaling is nice, but it should have been that way from the beginning.

Overall, I still don't think these changes go far enough. The Sorceror or Wizard of the same level is still much more powerful.

Jaime

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

Psionics are not broken IMHO.

You just have to plan out characters from level 1, maximize your associated ability and steer clear of the crappy, non-scalable powers. Plan around either being a pure psion or a multiclass early. (Also convince your DM to use the variants PrCs by Bruce Cordell and beg your DM for some new powers after the limited powers in the PsiHB become tedious.)

I dig savants, egoists and nomads.

Savants because they are better than rogues. Disable device, open locks and search in a pure caster who can wear leather armor, buff and bust out direct damage manifests. Yum.

Egoists as fighter/barbarian/ranger multiclasses. Biofeedback, how I love you. Lesser body adj/body adj (effectively heals 1d8x2 for 1pp or 3d6x2 with biofeedback up, or heals your own ability damage.), vigor, displacement also rock.

Nomads suck until higher levels but time hop makes it all worth it.

Shapers have the same problem as summoner sorcs. All their powers are upgradable.

Seers have the diviner problem: can see the bad guy, can't do anything about it. Best used as NPCs or with other powers.

Telepaths have the least amount of game balance for actual game play. They suck completely at low levels and then BAM!...they can have their own army. Not playable in most campaigns. Kinda like a high level Ventrue. Why adventure when you can have your buddies defeat everything or just take over the blasted kingdom? Best for (evil) NPCs.

At first, I thought psionic warriors blew, but then I realized that their manifester level is equal to their class level. I cannot stress the power of this enough. Most hybrids and multiclasses have crappy caster levels and thus crappy durations and effects. All of the buffs for a psiwarrior are thus greatly enhanced. I dig biofeedback/improved biofeedback, vigilance, lmw/mw, vigor, burst, detect psionics, animal affinity, displacement, inertial barrier, and energy barrier. My favorite psiwarriors are the "psipolymorph selfer" and the psiarcher (lmw/mw is the next best thing to an arcane archer).

Favorite psion characters:

1) Orc Barbarian/Egoist, falchion, couple speeds of thought, mental leap, biofeedback, lesser ba, burst, really high jump skill, rhino hide (would have been better as a fighter with spring attack)

2) Dwarf Savant, 1 level fighter to equip armor, trap skills, and direct damage/counterspell/inertial barrier/invisibility/matter agitation, lots of hit points due to high Con, great AC due to plate mail and shield.

3) Halfling Nomad, bad guy spellcaster behind peons? Time hop.

4) Halfling PsiWarrior, mighty composite shortbow, rapid shot, lmw, speed of thought.

And now back to our regularly scheduled rant on how everything is broken...

 

[JCLabelle]

Combine those changes with the Resculpt Mind feat

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/psi/psi20020426b

 

[Gromm]

These are powers designed to combat other Psionic characters and creatures. They do 1d2 Int, 1d4 Dex, 1d2 Str, 2d4 Wis and 1d4 Cha temporary damage. (Costing 1,3,3,5, and 9 power points per use). The last is a 60' cone.

Ummmm.... Mind Blast basically kills whoever it hits. There is no cure for stunning in the Core rules (or any offical rules that I know of). Once your stunned, your done for a while. Might as well get something to drink and have someone page you when you get to play again. Now imagine your hitting a cone of guys and taking them out of the game for 3d4 rnds.

Sure its not cheap, but it works.

Psions also can use any armor with no penalties. Low level Psions aren't the greatest, but some of their powers are insane (mostly the higher levels admittedly). Psions can cast more power than either Wizards or Sorcerors. Sure a sorceror can drop his higher level spells for say magic missles (which happens quite often in my experience- dropping a high end spell for a lower level spell because the higher level one isn't as useful in a given situation). Psions pay only for what they use, alternatively they can cast all high level spells (effectively trading say 2-2nd level spells and a 1st level spell for a 5th level spell- what wizard wouldn't like that ability?).

As with all spell casters mulitclassing will dilute the power of the class. This is even moreso with psions, who advance slower than any other spell casting class. Psions have powers beyond the scope of many spells (time hop, most of the mental powers, etc).

The only class that seems broken in my experience is the Ranger, but even Rangers aren't all bad- mostly due to skills, not any class abilities.

The awful truth is that psions are probably the worst class at low levels, the new mages of 3e if you will. They do become powerful at higher levels (if you use the d20 rule for DCs they can be a threat to anything even at lower levels). Multiclassing as a psionis probably a bad idea, slow progression coupled with weak low level powers (especially 1st level), means you wont be doing much in the power dept until you start getting 2nd and 3rd level powers. But then again the PP system at least allows you to use more of your higher level powers more often.

Psions aren't for everyone, or every situation, but I don't think they are broken.

 

[Al]

In terms of sheer raw spellcasting power, then psions aren't as powerful as arcane spellcasters...but then what else is new.

Psions do get the following:
More skill points per level
Better skills
More flexibility than either wizards or sorcerors
Mind blast
Psionic feats
Ability to cast without components...
...leading to ability to cast spells in full plate and shield(paladin1/telepathx is a well-known smackdown, +10AC and +Cha bonus to saves)
Some very nice powers (Ectoplasmic Armour anyone? Temporal Velocity? THRALL?)
And the fact that some of their prime requisites have incredible utility anyway (savants tend to have more HPs than most fighters, nomads have ACs through the roof)

On the whole, therefore, I'd have to say psions are balanced.