Battlemind article out

[Destil]

[Excellent PP stuff]

Thanks, Shroomy. That's a good analysis and puts me a bit more at-ease for epic psionic types. My main worry is that I usually open with at-wills to feel out an opponent, and I'd be sad if psionic types need to spend resources to keep up doing such things.

The other weird thing about the ardent is they have an attack granter at epic that actually will do on-par damage in most cases, since the granted attack will be epic-level damage. This is one of the ones I considered 'on par' with the epic non-psionic options, for that very reason.

And like I said, a lot of the psion powers looks potent enough unaugmented that not allowing any dice if they were level 1s seems in the ballpark. Still. I'm really hoping all the builds have a 2[W] or 2dX option at 23, for those that want some raw damage options...

Hopefully in actual play things will work just fine.

 

[Regicide]

Heh - not me. I toss in extra minions just so they can die gloriously and make the players feel cool and cinematic.

As a player I love minions. They're free XP. Bags and bags of free XP. Wonderful stuff.

As a DM I hate them, they're a waste of time getting the models out and putting them on the table just to take them off again almost immediately.

 

[Shroomy]

Thanks, Shroomy. That's a good analysis and puts me a bit more at-ease for epic psionic types. My main worry is that I usually open with at-wills to feel out an opponent, and I'd be sad if psionic types need to spend resources to keep up doing such things.

The other weird thing about the ardent is they have an attack granter at epic that actually will do on-par damage in most cases, since the granted attack will be epic-level damage. This is one of the ones I considered 'on par' with the epic non-psionic options, for that very reason.

And like I said, a lot of the psion powers looks potent enough unaugmented that not allowing any dice if they were level 1s seems in the ballpark. Still. I'm really hoping all the builds have a 2[W] or 2dX option at 23, for those that want some raw damage options...

Hopefully in actual play things will work just fine.

Yeah, exhilarating strike is potentially a very nice power, but unaugmented its weaker than a warlord's commander's strike (less damage but flexible targeting), while a 2 point augment is slightly better than the warlord's power, and it is pretty awesome with a 6 point augment (can you imagine dropping two 6 point augments in a single combat!).

Resource management is definitely going to be an issue with the ardent, battlemind, and psion and their players are definitely going to need to learn to spend their points wisely. I fear that a lot of inexperienced players are going to frustrate themselves by going nova too often or being too conservative with their power points. What I think you need is a nice mix of lower and higher augmented powers; I'm sure that someone with better math skills than I will eventually figure out the most effective way to spend your power points. That said, I don't think the ardent, battlemind, or psion will ever really be king of DPR; their ability to use augmented powers repeatedly kind of necessitates keeping the damage down for balance reasons IMO.

 

[Piratecat]

Resource management is definitely going to be an issue with the ardent, battlemind, and psion and their players are definitely going to need to learn to spend their points wisely.

This is what I love about the class. For my own playing style, I'd definitely rather have fewer total powers (fewer cards to consider!) but more flexibility through augmentation.

 

[Shroomy]

This is what I love about the class. For my own playing style, I'd definitely rather have fewer total powers (fewer cards to consider!) but more flexibility through augmentation.

I'm really enjoying the power point using psionic classes and if I was going to play another character, I'd definitely pick one of them (though I'd probably wait for the PHB3 so I could get my full range of options). After delving into how the 4e power point system works, I'm really excited about the potential of these classes.

 

[Moon_Goddess]

This is what I love about the class. For my own playing style, I'd definitely rather have fewer total powers (fewer cards to consider!) but more flexibility through augmentation.

I really hate that the character builder prints them as seperate cards though

 

[Destil]

I really hate that the character builder prints them as seperate cards though

Lightning strike augment 4 is a particularly bad offender:

Effect: You can't take a standard action next turn.... And you can take a standard action next turn.

I can imagine why this is the case, but I hope they offer some better options for printing 'em...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Lightning strike augment 4 is a particularly bad offender:

Effect: You can't take a standard action next turn.... And you can take a standard action next turn.

I can imagine why this is the case, but I hope they offer some better options for printing 'em...

I can only imagin the DMs that run 100% raw games like the DM was a computer

player: I augment 4 this power... it reads "Effect: You can't take a standard action next turn.... And you can take a standard action next turn."

DM: "error..."

Player "ha, ok really"

DM "error 404..." then he collapses....