D&D 4E I admit it. I don't "get" 4e psionics.

[Mengu]

I'm discovering more and more, what I don't like about the power point mechanic. It makes "encounter" powers very spamcourageable. Imagine you were an inspiring warlord and could use War of Attrition 3 times per encounter. It would be tough coming up with reasons to use anything else, right?

Currently the way encounter powers work for non-psi characters, you are typically forced to pick a power that does something a little different at each level. This naturally creates good diversity and more colorful combat tactics.

A psion who can spam augmented Mind Thrust to help his party take down opponents one by one doesn't really need any other augments. Just keep spamming the same one every time you're switching to a fresh target, and you're golden. This is the problem with flexible selection. One will find the best option (and there will always be a best option for whatever it is you're trying to do), and spam it.

Even for most normal characters, they use one of their at-wills a majority of the time, and the other(s) as the situation warrants it. Same thing will happen with augmentable powers where one will get used 80-90% of the time.

 

[Obryn]

I'm largely of the agreement that the core of the power point system is perfectly well-designed... they just completely dropped the ball on actually designing the powers. Especially at higher levels, when some of those low-level powers with cheap augments (that have scaled based on stats) are so good, the system runs into problems.

OK, that's a relief. I guess I actually do "get" 4e psionics, then. I thought I was missing something, but it turns out what I was missing is that the system really is kind of hinky.

On a related note, I think the Character Builder compounds the difficulty of making psionic characters. Being unable to preview higher-level powers before trading out the lower-level ones makes these sorts of decisions a little more confusing.

-O

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'm discovering more and more, what I don't like about the power point mechanic. It makes "encounter" powers very spamcourageable. Imagine you were an inspiring warlord and could use War of Attrition 3 times per encounter. It would be tough coming up with reasons to use anything else, right?

Currently the way encounter powers work for non-psi characters, you are typically forced to pick a power that does something a little different at each level. This naturally creates good diversity and more colorful combat tactics.

A psion who can spam augmented Mind Thrust to help his party take down opponents one by one doesn't really need any other augments. Just keep spamming the same one every time you're switching to a fresh target, and you're golden. This is the problem with flexible selection. One will find the best option (and there will always be a best option for whatever it is you're trying to do), and spam it.

Even for most normal characters, they use one of their at-wills a majority of the time, and the other(s) as the situation warrants it. Same thing will happen with augmentable powers where one will get used 80-90% of the time.

The "Spammability" is probably the greatest danger of the power point concept. Normal encounter powers can't be re-used (normally), and so even a broken one allows you to do only one broken thing. This limit can actually negate "brokenness" fully, forcing you to use a power in the right situation - no do-overs, try-agains and "lock-downs" with a great power.

 

[Flipguarder]

This is my problem with psionics which I can just right now express (ive felt it for a while but didn't know how to say it)

Current optimized builds (aka cheese builds) are based around at-wills or dailys. There are two ideas for cheese builds:

1. Consistent ridiculous dpr (damage per round) this comes from modifiying at-wills with items and feats.
2. Spending all your resources to do ridiculous amounts of damage in one turn (Nova)

Now that psionics is out. at-wills have a much greater versatility, this will inevitably lead to more ridiculous dpr builds

Thats my opinion at least. Actually looking through the powers thats somewhat been relieved. But the possibility still exists, and I'm fairly sure this time next year there will be more cheese builds involving psionic classes, then not.

 

[Nebulous]

I'm disappointed to hear that the general consensus in this thread is that psionics are *still* broken in D&D! I have the PH3 and have read through it, but i've not made a psionic character or seen one in play (and probably won't for a while). Still bugs me though that they have all the time and creativity in the world to get this right and a sub-optimal system is still the result. But maybe in play it is better, i dunno.

 

[DracoSuave]

I'm disappointed to hear that the general consensus in this thread is that psionics are *still* broken in D&D! I have the PH3 and have read through it, but i've not made a psionic character or seen one in play (and probably won't for a while). Still bugs me though that they have all the time and creativity in the world to get this right and a sub-optimal system is still the result. But maybe in play it is better, i dunno.

Bear in mind, most of this is theorycraft, and not play experience.

Until some people have played with it, it's just fear and loathing.

 

[Flipguarder]

Or at least pure speculation (which is all my post is btw)

 

[Obryn]

Bear in mind, most of this is theorycraft, and not play experience.

Until some people have played with it, it's just fear and loathing.

No, I'd definitely love to see psionic characters in play. I'm also not particularly worried about "spammability" of augmented powers. (I personally think the need to reduce spam abuse contributed to the problems I'm seeing with the system.)

But please - as far as the system being iffy goes - look at the Ardent Level 1 Demoralizing Strike and let me know of any circumstance where a player would be better off taking the Level 13 power, Victorious Urging, instead. It's just one example, but I've statted up a few psionic characters in Character Builder by now, and it's far from unique.

-O

 

[Turtlejay]

As far as spamming goes, doesn't this reflect 3.5 psionics pretty accurately? You could have a handful of powers, and you would always be able to use your power points towards whatever was most effective in the situation?

Like pretty much everyone else here (besides PC, apparently) this is all from just reading through, but it seems like the base, level 1 at-wills were just made too darned good. Since you get new at wills starting at 3rd level, and can switch them all out eventually, it would not have been a crime at all to have even subpar initial at-wills.

I'd like to see how this plays out though. With the addition of a full character's worth of feats an items, and a supporting party, how do they change?

Jay

 

[MrMyth]

Bear in mind, most of this is theorycraft, and not play experience.

Until some people have played with it, it's just fear and loathing.

Yeah. As much as I'm wary of some of the powers and feel more care could have been put into it, the Psion I've seen in actual play worked just fine. And really, even with the issues, the class is hardly broken or unplayable - just potentially duller than it had the potential to be.