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Message: <blockquote data-quote="uzagi_akimbo" data-source="post: 1775010" data-attributes="member: 15945">Just to add another drop to the churning lake of Psionics vs sorcerer's magic and ability to nuke....As Scion pointed out, a sorcerer will be able to deliver as much damage through energy as a psion does, given time. That is right. the problem is, it sis also a disadvantageNow in my experience, slower damage delivery can be a real drain on resources in a damage system like the HP system used by D20, because there are no real penalties attached to having rather low HP - one just keeps on fighting until dropping unconscious, at undiminished ability. Which means, taking another one or two rounds to finish off an opponent (or even several, say with a second and third fireball ) usually means the opposition getting another rounds of attacks in - which means additional resources spend by the PCs to recover or deal with those threads, hence additional cost. It may even make the difference between a PC's survival or demise, the ultimate price. Say, against a bunch of Frost giants who had the good foresight to use a resist energy-fire potion before mashing the PCs... who will get in several nice crushing blows or boulders before the sorcerer finally destroys them through application of overwhelming firepower. While the  Psion calmly picks lightning or sonics for his next attack (if he didn't on the first try ). Of course this does not even take into account that the sorcerer may have to use a less effective spell in the first place, because his primary attack spell (say "Firebrand") gets resisted by the targets, and so does the alrternate energy form for it (if he even picks, or is able to pick, the nergy substitution feat...As the psion is able to freely pick an appropriate energy type for damage means he will usually deliver (even an initially lesser amount ) straight through the gap of a target's resistances in a single attack - hence higher speed at achieving the oposition's takedown, ergo less attacks by that opposition.And even with Energy Substitution (admixture) a sorcerer needs one feat for each energy type to convert the basic spell into. Plus, the spell becoming a full round action, limiting his tactical choices at positioning etc... Pretty good advantage, without ever having boosted the spell from its initial version.Sorry, that is one heck of an advantage, especially in a "multiple combats a day" situation, where clerics and heal items start feeling the strain, because the oppostion get blows in itself...Plus, what gets me most about psions is the difficulty in shutting down their power-use efficiently - silence etc. are hard pressed to counter these, and especially in situation where the 'limitation' is one of social pressure/observation, they beat their arcane competition hands down. Much easier to cover up the funny smell or hum caused by the psion, then the arm waving and chanting of the sorcerer.Third bone of contention - the psion's ability to take individual opposition out of a fight/neutralize them reliably for set amounts of time with only 3rd level powers is for one deeply boring to players who get struck by them (ok, when does my Half-orc barbarian come back - six rounds ? guess I go and pick up som pizza), and usually very powerful in some situations, as the designers rather mistakenly seemed to believe that simply being unable to harm someone for a set time is adequate compensation for the victim being utterly helpless while their friends get slaughtered, their foes buff up and create a deadly cross-fire situation with readied attacks..etc... stuff like Time Hop , Ectoplasmic Cocoon, Crisis of Breath.... Bang, there goes the bodyguard troll.. sure we have to deal with him in a few rounds, but in the meantime, we rip the mage apart who would have cast at us from the safe position behind the troll...Not to mention stuff like 'Hustle', where someone obviously did not note the brokenness of "Haste" in v3.0 and that it was reworked for v3.5 , or thought it was limited to spell casting..... I guess they consider eliminating the entire feat chain for "cast on the run" by a third level power, or fullattacking-spring attacking psy warriors rather balanced.... (especially as they changed "Haste" to prevent just these to be possible ).I will not even start on the massive problems with soulknives, psy warriors and whats-nots, because this is a debate about psion vs. arcane firepower.</blockquote>

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