Adding a Psion to an group

[marune]

Hi,

I'm my current FR, evil-aligned, high-level (party average level is 14) campaign, a psion was recently introduced.

The campaign idea is this one : all the PCs are part of a different organisation, but they are at the same time employed as unofficial agent by another one [the Shadow Thieves] to work in a "lawful-good" magicaly leaded metropolis [Waterdeep].

Of course, the typical session doesn't include a classic dungeon crawl (it happens from times to times of course), therefore rarely the recommended 4 encounter of the appropriate CR / day.

In many case in a session there is a lot of "gather info" including scouting, uses of social skills, divinations/scrying, etc.. then a few minors encounters and only one major.

If you are still reading, you probably know what is my problem, the psion[telepath] is the perfect character for this campaign. He's better than the CHA rogue for many "social tasks", better than the wizard/cleric for "divinations/mental assault" and he even beats the Wizard in direct magical attacks!

The main reason behind that (I suspect) is that he has so many PP/day that he can freely augments them. My first try to balance things would be to reduce the PP number according to our typical number of encounters / day.

I would like to have your ideas/feedback on this subject, thanks.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I would like to have your ideas/feedback on this subject, thanks.

Don't gimp the psion just because the player tailor-made the character for the campaign. Either allow him or not. Quite honestly, I'm surprised your group isn't entirely psions.

 

[marune]

Don't gimp the psion just because the player tailor-made the character for the campaign. Either allow him or not. Quite honestly, I'm surprised your group isn't entirely psions.

The character was tailor-made, because the PC (rogue/asn) of this player was killed for a second time. I allowed it for 2 reasons, first the setting support, second some interesting powers (mental probe, object reading, trace teleport, etc.) give me interesting new ways to challenge them.

My goal is not to nerf it, but every times a debate start about the psion being overpowered or not, the "psion are not broken" main defence is that they are balanced for a typical game session where there is 4 encounters of the appropriate CR a day.

I also think that this was designers intent that fully augmenting all powers should be a tought decision.

The others party members are :
Rogue/Fighter/ShadowThief (CHA rogue figting with two daggers)
Monk
Wizard/ShadowAdept
Cleric

Their main strategy is to have the cleric/wizard disabling ennemies while the rogue and the monk flank and kill them (stunning fists and sneak attacks are great friends).

When they encounter a construct, they cries like babies. (Until now, because the psion can destroy them with that Crystal Shard power )

 

[Soulglow]

Reducing pps is a bad idea, imho. Even if the player agreed to it, you'll never be able to have those four encounter days w/o pissing off the player. As a DM, I'd hate having a limit like that. I'd disallow psions and probably psionics altogether. If he wants a caster with social skills, see the Beguiler in PHII.

 

[Graf]

Hmm. This has come up constantly over the years and isn’t a psion problem particularly. Spellcasters rock when the party controls the pace of the story (and can set encounters at one per day).
In a city campaign this should be fairly easy to stop… just give them active foes who are out there and moving around.


Personally I wouldn’t nerf the psion anymore than I would nerf a sorc (or beguiler) with Detect Thoughts and some charm/evocation spells.
Mechanically they’re virtually identical.

The trick is to get a bit more flexible in terms of how you tell your stories and give the other characters reasons to shine.
I’m not sure how the psion could be as good at “social” tasks as a rogue, for starters he’s going to glow and get all shiny when he’s charming someone or reading their mind and when it wears off they’ll be pissed.
Not a reasonable long term solution to social problems.
If he’s getting away with charming and mindreading everything in sight (especially in a high magic world like FR) you’re probably playing the targets a bit poorly. If he develops a reputation have him banned from taverns, people refusing to meet with him, having allies cast magic deflecting buffs, etc.

Mind-reading is his (or her) strength complaining about that is like complaining about barbarians having hit points.
As the clerics and wizards also get divinations in much wider varieties I’m not sure how this psion is “outclassing them” in that area. Divinations, depending on questions and so forth can be reveal completely different answers… I would play that up by providing different information for all three of them.

Blasting? Telepaths being better than wizards?
Are you using complete psion rules?
D4 hitpoint caster classes depend a –lot- on the skills of the player. It may be that the player is just better at reading a scene and developing tactics.

 

[Thanee]

To date, the psionic rules are the most unbalanced rules Wizards put out for D&D. There are always some feats or magic items or spells, which are not really balanced, but psionics took that to new levels.

Still, gimping the character doesn't really sound like a good approach. And if you do not want to ban psionics outright (the easiest solution to the psionics problem) and thus ban the character, which would be a bit harsh after you already allowed it, you better alter the campaign to make things more balanced.

There are certainly many ways to make it tougher for psionics-users. He's probably a rarity there... hunt him down... make sure he needs a huge amount of PP each day for his own protection. Give them more challenges in quicker succession. Maybe work with the player to remove a few select powers, which step on the toes of other characters. Stuff like that.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

Blasting? Telepaths being better than wizards?

All it takes is one feat.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Piratecat]

Make sure you're using the errata; that makes a big difference for several powers.

 

[DreamChaser]

And make sure he is not the only psion/psionic character in the game.

As has come up before, I disagree with Thanee's assertion. The psionic rules are not, IMO, unbalanced; however, any portion of the psionics rules taken out of the whole of the psionics rules and used on its own is.

A couple things to keep in mind:
Complete Psionic clarified that purely physical powers like Crystal Shard are subject to DR so it is not the construct killer it appears to be (that is left to the horribly broken Orb spells from Complete Arcane).

There are a sizable number of powers and creatures that can attack a psionic character's store of power or inflate his cost per power.

Keeping these (and the rest of the system) in mind, should reduce the unbalanced feeling of the lone psion.

DC

 

[marune]

I’m not sure how the psion could be as good at “social” tasks as a rogue, for starters he’s going to glow and get all shiny when he’s charming someone or reading their mind and when it wears off they’ll be pissed. Not a reasonable long term solution to social problems.

If he’s getting away with charming and mindreading everything in sight (especially in a high magic world like FR) you’re probably playing the targets a bit poorly. If he develops a reputation have him banned from taverns, people refusing to meet with him, having allies cast magic deflecting buffs, etc.

Mind-reading is his (or her) strength complaining about that is like complaining about barbarians having hit points.

Because Read toughts, Mind probe, Metamorphosis, Dominate, etc.. are more effective than Gather info, Bluff, Intimidate and Disguise..

In my original post, I don't complain that he's more effective at mind reading, I complain because he can play well so many roles that he outshine the rest of the party.

Remember that psi powers can be manifested easily without any visible/audible effects, another advantage vs the equivalent spells of the wizard.

As the clerics and wizards also get divinations in much wider varieties I’m not sure how this psion is “outclassing them” in that area. Divinations, depending on questions and so forth can be reveal completely different answers… I would play that up by providing different information for all three of them.

It's because of how PP works, if the party need 5 "clairvoyance" in a row, the Wizard can't give them, but the Psion can.

Blasting? Telepaths being better than wizards?
Are you using complete psion rules?
D4 hitpoint caster classes depend a –lot- on the skills of the player. It may be that the player is just better at reading a scene and developing tactics.

I don't use complete psion, but to be honest he's not good to handle a mass of low cr foes. But he has a few basic powers that are quite effective (that Crystal shard thing that do untyped damage, and a energy based one that I don't remember).

And don't worry about d4 when you have Vigor at hand