Anyone else annoyed by psionics?

[Spatula]

The psion can use the same amount of PP for a higher level effect (and would be stupid if he did not). And not to mention all the other benefits they enjoy, which are not covered with the augmentation cost alone. It also doesn't mention that about half of the psions powers work in exactly the same way as spells without any augmentation, and the psion can manifest tons of those in a day, not just a couple.

Which half are we talking about here?

The amount of PP psions get increases quite fast and that alleviates a lot of their "problems" with limited PP to the point where this "problem" is non-existant at higher levels. The advantages remain...

Yep, tho not short enough, I think. And the advantage is incredibly high, because those are the powers which count in a day, not the plethora of magic missiles.

Yep, but once a psion can defeat like half a dozen encounters in a day all by himself, then this hardly happens anymore.

I don't know Thanee, I have actual experience DMing XPH psions and have seen them in action, which I believe you have not (from your statements that your group looked at XPH and decided not to use it). Once we fixed energy missile to be more reasonable, there haven't been any serious problems. Both psions in my game run out of PP all the time, and I'm generally surprised when it happens ("You're out already?"). We're still at low-to-mid levels (one of the psions just reached 7th), but my experience has been pretty constant so far.

 

[Elrik_DarkFury]

Ahahahahaha(mad laught).
We, wizards will always be the most powerfull of all!!!

____________________
The Wizard

 

[Li Shenron]

I am not annoyed by psionics because I don't use them

 

[Thanee]

Which half are we talking about here?

I meant powers like Detect Psionics, Dispel Psionics (not including the Greater Dispel part), Fly, Dimension Door, Metamorphosis, etc, which you do not need to augment at all and which are highly useful nonetheless. The equivalent spells often make up a whole lot of the spells a sorcerer casts in a day.

I don't know Thanee, I have actual experience DMing XPH psions and have seen them in action, which I believe you have not (from your statements that your group looked at XPH and decided not to use it). Once we fixed energy missile to be more reasonable, there haven't been any serious problems. Both psions in my game run out of PP all the time, and I'm generally surprised when it happens ("You're out already?"). We're still at low-to-mid levels (one of the psions just reached 7th), but my experience has been pretty constant so far.

Do you also have a sorcerer in that game? I still remember how fast my sorceress ran out of spells at those levels. I think that's pretty normal for every spellcasting class.

Anyways, what I meant is certainly only really applicable to higher levels (10th+ or so), wasn't very clear about that, my bad.

We have played with psionics quite extensively, but that was using the previous version of the augmentation system (from ITCK, also using MS), which was weaker and where psions already were slightly more powerful than wizards (they were a lot weaker without the upgrades, which is what most people will recall). Sure there have been times the psion had no PP left, but those were not immensely common once a certain level was reached. It's pretty similar to that degree, that you spend more PP to gain a higher effect and the base effect of the power is equal to a spell of minimum scaling.

I can see that they run out a bit faster now, but the impact of their powers is also higher, and they only do so, if they choose to use a pretty aggressive approach (i.e. what I have depicted above), which has its benefits to compensate for the quicker burnout, so its not like that burnout was something that needed to be compensated otherwise.



One question: Could you post the relevant stats of your player's psions and what kind of powers they manifest usually?

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

You finished quoting me too early!

I wasn't making the argument that AU does it so it is OK, just bringing up the fact that there is an arcane system which does this, ...

Ah, sorry about that. Wasn't clear to me where you were coming from.

It certainly sounded like, since it works well in AU it should work well in D&D also.


It's still something, which I believe is quite interesting. If (what Scion often hints at also) they made psionics this way because the magic system has dramatic flaws (which I don't think, but well)... then why don't they change/errata the magic system?

Basing the XPH on a whole different set of rules, which essentially they did considering how often they break out of the 3.5 constraints, isn't really a good way IMHO.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Plane Sailing]

then why don't they change/errata the magic system?

Although Complete Arcane is coming up I don't anticipate it doing anything major in that respect. Unearthed Arcana was the only time when I've seen them offer changes to the magic system but I didn't like any of the options there - especially compared to (say) AU, or the little I'd seen of Sovereign Stone.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that WotC will eventually do more to "complete the circle" of OGL and bring good quality third party rules into the fold.

I can dream

Cheers

 

[Psion]

Which half are we talking about here?
I don't know Thanee, I have actual experience DMing XPH psions and have seen them in action, which I believe you have not (from your statements that your group looked at XPH and decided not to use it). Once we fixed energy missile to be more reasonable, there haven't been any serious problems. Both psions in my game run out of PP all the time, and I'm generally surprised when it happens ("You're out already?"). We're still at low-to-mid levels (one of the psions just reached 7th), but my experience has been pretty constant so far.

This reflects my experience as well. And yes, I do run sorcerers in my game as well.

 

[Thanee]

I can dream

Yeah, like dreaming of 4th edition... until it is out at least.


@Spatula/Psion: As I said above, I think what I perceive as a balance problem there only really shows from mid-high levels, especially once you reach the point, which in my experience always happens eventually, where the spellcasters won't go through all their spells in a day anymore, except in extremely rare circumstances.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

And yes, I do run sorcerers in my game as well.

Could you post a psion and a sorcerer from the same game maybe (classes, levels, attributes, skills, feats and powers/spells should suffice)?

Would be curious how they look like.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Psion]

Could you post a psion and a sorcerer from the same game maybe (classes, levels, attributes, skills, feats and powers/spells should suffice)?

So is your question "do I have a copy of the PCs character sheets"? The answer is no.

In my old homebrew campaign world, the Sorcerer had reached epic levels, and had benefitted from a house rule I have which grants sorcerers extra spells (not unlike the Dragon article bloodline feats) and from the quintessential sorcerer's -touched and -legacy templates. He also used metamagic rods but never really took advantage of the new staff rules like I felt he should. The character used DBF and Horrid Wilting extensively, and was such a damage machine that he tended to pound any non-magic resistant opposition to mush.

In my second world game, the sorcerer was aiming towards "arcane blade" so was sort of substandard. He mostly used buff spells and was multiclassed.

In my World's Largest Dungeon game, the Psion was a shaper. I remember him having astral construct and control flames.

This, of course, is just the PCs. NPC sorcerers and psions the pcs have met had varied widely.