[XPH] Metamind worth it?

[Eraslin]

Good afternoon everyone,
So, I've been looking through the XPH here; specifically at the metamind PrC. I'm curious about other people's opinions/experience with this class.

I'm not actually convinced that the PrC is worth it for a psion. Consider a comparison between an L20 psion and an L10/L10 psion/metamind, both with an int of 29 (18 + 5{levels} + 6{item}). The straight psion has 433 power points, and the metamind has 262 power points. The metamind can also manifest a number of powers free each day, so we'll just add the costs of those powers straight to his power point reserve for this comparison -- this brings the metamind's power point reserve to 295 power points. So, the metamind has 138 fewer power points than the psion; but, the metamind has this "font of power" ability (which sounds cool, by the way).

Now, to evaluate the font of power... If we assume that the metamind has the quicken and psionic meditation feats as well as the schism power, she can blow a total of 39 power points each round (15 {regular power} + 15 {quickened power} + 9 {schism}) as long as she remains unmolested. I'm not 100% sure what the average encounter length (in rounds) is for an L20 group, but I can't imagine it taking more than 5 rounds. This means that as long as the metamind is left alone, she can use her font of power to spend 195 power points for free. But, realistically, the metamind is not going to be left alone most of the time -- if your PC encountered an enemy group, and that group had a glowing party member who was blasting your group at an alarming rate would you leave her alone? So, realistically, the metamind isn't likely to even get the full 5 rounds of blasting in (possibly due to having to move {making it impossible to regain psionic focus for another quicken}, or possibly due to being dead/disabled).

Regardless, though, if the metamind gets that full 5 rounds in unmolested then the metamind has given up 2 bonus feats, 5 manifester levels, and eight psionic powers (6 of which can be upto level 9 powers, and the other 2 can be upto level 8) in exchange for 57 power points and an 11pp power crystal.

Doesn't seem worth it to me... Nevermind that it's a PrC that requires being taken all the way to L10, if it's going to be taken at all.

-Eraslin

 

[Tkolhoff]

I agree with you on the Metamind. The new rules have really helped the "general" psion PC a great deal by letting them get more power points and allowing them to "augment" a power. On the basis of that alone I dont see any reason why I would take Metamind PrC.

 

[Piratecat]

I also agree. The metamind is poorly designed, in my opinion, and ends up being a significant reduction in power.

 

[Spatula]

It's rather funny, but this is exactly the same problem that the original 3.0 Metamind PrC had. The PrC text talked about how characters took Metamind levels in order to get more power points, but a character that tried that actually ended up with far less (and no high-level powers).

My off-the-cuff fix would be to ignore the 3rd paragraph of the Free Manifesting class ability, allowing metaminds to freely augment the freely manifested powers (those powers would basically function as psi-like abilities). That might be excessive, however. The number of times per day that Free Manifestation can be used might need to be lowered if you go that route.

Or perhaps allow a metamind can subtract his class level (or 1/2 his class level) from augmentation costs when using Free Manifestation.