Anyone else annoyed by psionics?

[renbot]

I have never liked psionics, and as a DM have never allowed them in my game. However, since I have started an Eberron campaign I felt that locking out psionics would cut off too many potentially cool plot points, so I decided to allow them. And I still hate them.

Does anyone else think it is a problem that psionics almost never allow a saving throw? Or that the same power (the most useful one) can be used exclusively? The psion in my campaign argued that it is just like the sorcerer. Ummm, no, not unless you allow your sorcerer to cannibalize all of their higher level spell and convert them all into magic missle, or web, or some other broken spell that doesn't manage to wreck the game simply because there is a limit to the number you get a day.

Energy ray: scorching ray with free energy substitution thrown in.
Entangling ectoplasm: animate rope with no save and no chance to escape.
Crystal shards: huh? a touch attack for things that are physical and not energy? What are they smoking?

Psionics: a bad idea that just keep getting worse.

 

[Droid101]

Not me. Haven't been overused/unbalanced in any games I'm in. If anything, Psions seem a little limited in my game, thus far.

Depends on the game, really. Nobody in my games even has any of the powers you've listed. (One guy has Energy Ray, but he's a pyro, so he only uses fire.)

 

[Spatula]

Does anyone else think it is a problem that psionics almost never allow a saving throw?

I did back in 2nd edition D&D. Since that's no longer the case... no. The vast majority of powers allows for a save.

not unless you allow your sorcerer to cannibalize all of their higher level spell and convert them all into magic missle

You can use a higher-level slot to cast a lower-level spell. A 6th level sorcerer can cast 14 magic missile spells per day if he wanted to.

 

[Scion]

I have loved psionics from the very beginning. Overall it has had less total problems than the magic system, along with more accurately representing the 'magic' from many books (in fact, the vast majority of books that say they use magic actually use what, in d&d, would be coined as psionics).

Also, just as many powers allow saves as magic. Especially now that psionics are nothing but a branch of magic that happens to use a pool of points rather than slots.

Energy ray vs scorching ray. Most of the time scorching ray is better for sheer damage for low cost. All that the energy shifting allows one to do really is make the power still viable at higher levels, a massive pitfal of magic that makes direct damage spells essentially obsolete (not because of psionics, merely because that is how the game works, resistance and immunity are more and more common the higher up you go). Oh, I just looked up energy ray. Effectively it 'always' does less damage than scorching ray for the same cost.

Crystal shards merely needs a bit of text stating that DR works against it. The touch attack part is fine though, there are other physical attacks which use touch attacks anyway. Also, its incredibly short range really limits its use.

In any event, overall I think that the current incarnation of psionics is by far the most balanced version of magic yet. It still has a few bugs (mainly with durations, too short, but that is the general 3.5 trend of nerfing anyway) but these can be fixed with a couple lines of houserules. Magic definately has some major issues though.

All in all, I would suggest just going through and trying it for awhile. If you like magic then there is no reason why you shouldnt like psionics. (Also, remember that lack of scaling is a pretty massive hit. That scorching ray will be doing up to 3 x 4d6 later on, while the poor energy ray will still be doing Xd6 where X is the number of pp dumped into it, you have to dump in enough to do a 6.5 level power just to be able to match it, scorching ray is 'way' ahead there).

 

[Thanee]

The biggest (actually the only real ) problem I have with the new psionics is, that they wasted so much potential (the basic ideas are quite good) with the book with poor execution.

Hopefully in 4th edition, they will have someone (someone who understands how the core rules work, that is) help out with the balancing there, so it fits to the core rules.

Bye
Thanee

 

[renbot]

It seems to me that the mental attacks allow saves, but none of the physical ones that have been used yet in my game.

The scorching ray analogy is a bad one. Scorching ray is ALWAYS fire. ALWAYS. How easy is fire resistance to obtain? How common is fire immunity? E.ray negates everything's resistances and exacerbates everything's vulnerabilties, every time, with no planning or scrying or anything on the party's part. You might be OK with rewarding laziness and a lack of prep but I prefer to discourage it.

And burning high level spells to cast low ones is, with all due respect, very bad logic and the kind my player keeps falling back on. A ninth level spell allows for one magic missle. A ninth level power allows for 17 first level powers, or one first level power augmented 17 times. No one is going to burn all of their high level spells on low level ones because the game makes such a cost prohibitive and thus the comparison, while depressingly common, is deeply flawed. Burning all of your power points on augmented low level powers, however, does not suffer from the same cost inflation and will break at moderate to high levels, especially against creatures with specific vulnerabilities and immunities.

For example, the party thought it was going up against undead last night and instead went up against barbarians. The cleric, prepared for undead, was hosed. The psion, if he has even one power that is useful, can go on for 15 rds before running out of stuff to do.

 

[Dr_Rictus]

For example, the party thought it was going up against undead last night and instead went up against barbarians. The cleric, prepared for undead, was hosed. The psion, if he has even one power that is useful, can go on for 15 rds before running out of stuff to do.

Conversely, the cleric gets to prepare for whatever he has some reason to expect, while if the psion doesn't have a power that is useful, it is he who is hosed. Clerics hardly get the short end of the stick in this game.

Seems to me like your problem is more with spontaneous-use abilities vs. prepared ones than with psionics specifically, here.

Also, if the cleric somehow ended up without something to do, I have to assume the party went up against some flavor of barbarians that weren't doing damage that needed healing. The cleric may not have liked the best option he had, but I'm having a hard time believing he had nothing to do.

 

[renbot]

Of course the cleric can always be a healing machine, and in my games that has proven to be so popular for its diverse and interesting applications.

And it is not just the spontaneity, it is a level of sponaneity that is afforded to no one else in the group. Change energy at will, use you points at will, up your saves and your manifester level and your power resistance check with no feats, no special training, no preparation. You are like a sorceror with every metamagic feat and a nearly unlimited number of spells at whatever level is most useful right not. Can you imagine allowing your aracanist to convert every single spell level he had into 3rd level spells? A first and a second, a sixth is worth two thirds, as is a fourth and two seconds. No reason to find a use for those pesky levels with few good choices (I am looking at you 4th level spells) because they can just turn every single solitary spell they get into fireball when facing that white dragon.

Broken, stupid, poorly designed and badly balanced.

 

[Droid101]

Broken, stupid, poorly designed and badly balanced.

In your game.

This has been gone over for like, 290 some posts, in the Wizards vs Psions as Heavy Artillery Thread.

The general consensus is that if you start out not liking psionics, then no matter what anybody says, you won't like them, and think they're broken; even if it's perfectly logical.

If you start out liking psionics, then no matter what anyone says, you won't think they're broken, and still use them.

Depends on the game, the DM, etc etc, blah blah, whatever. If you don't like them, don't use them. I use them, and they are perfectly balanced in my game. Period.

 

[Thanee]

... even if it's perfectly logical.

Have yet to see anything perfectly logical and convincing there.

But yeah, psionics is one of those subrules, which you either love or hate, I guess.

I started out with pretty high expectations (after the even crappier 3.0 psionics rules) and got highly disappointed by the XPH (while the flavor is much better now the rules lack considerably for my tastes).

Our simple solution is to not use them, as it would take a tremendous amount of work (which even the designers are obviously incapable of putting up as seen with the errata) to put them in line with the 3.5 core rules (we generally like the power down with magic (except for a few durations and some minor issues), altho most love magic as it is, since spellcasters and non-spellcasters are more balanced now), and that's simply not worth it (since we do not have any players who would love to play a psion for flavor reasons, which is about the only reason I can see why one could be bothered to touch them).

Bye
Thanee