Bo9S - Alternative psionic mechanic?

[Glade Riven]

Thematically, many psionic abilities are available to monks in "Kung-Fu" movies, oriental fiction, and animation.

Bo9S's swordsage has alternative build ideas such as making the class more monk-ish (drop armor and add the monk's unarmed progression) or more gish (drop armor and allow spells to take the place of maneuvers). So here's a thought...what about using the swordsage to create a psionic monk? Drop the armor proficiancies and standard weapon proficiancies, give the class unarmed strike & monk weapon proficiancies, and let the player choose a psionic power in place of a maneuver of equil level?

 

[Dandu]

Bad idea for the same reason the arcane swordsage is bad.

 

[Glade Riven]

Sorry, I'm going to need some more clarification than that.

 

[Dandu]

Sorry, I'm going to need some more clarification than that.

Think very hard as to why allowing essentially unlimited spells or powers per day might be a bad thing considering the power of the spells and powers available.

 

[Glade Riven]

I take it you hate Bo9S in general. I've seen an arcane swordsage work in battle, and our core barbarian is still easily able to out-pace him with kills. Maybe it'll get egregious at higher levels (15+), but higher levels are egregious as-is.

Addendum: Limiting the powers to the psychic warrior power-list would help prevent some of the zanyness.

 

[Dandu]

I take it you hate Bo9S in general.

I take it you wouldn't recognize a person who hates Bo9S in general if he painted himself purple and danced around you naked playing a harp while singing "I hate the Book of Nine Swords."

I've seen an arcane swordsage work in battle, and our core barbarian is still easily able to out-pace him with kills.

I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sound of constant Polymorphing.

(Replace Polymorph with Summon Mirror Mephit, Minor/Major Creation, Explosive Runes, Planar Binding, etc, etc)

Addendum: Limiting the powers to the psychic warrior power-list would help prevent some of the zanyness.

So on one hand, I'm wrong. On the other hand... I'm also right?

 

[Glade Riven]

I take it you have no idea who you are talking to, or what you are talking about.

Sorry, but that's the attitude that seemed to come off of your text. If I made a further response on this particular point, it could be seen as flame-bait, so I'd prefer not to continue down that road.

I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sound of constant Polymorphing.

Never came up, and while we have a fairly lenient DM (mainly due to the sheer volume of 3.5/d20 books we have), he has warned us that anything we come up with can and will be used against us.

So on one hand, I'm wrong. On the other hand... I'm also right?

I didn't state that you were wrong, I stated that I've seen it work out in a manner that wasn't game breaking. I will attempt to phrase things better in the future so as to avoid statements that can be misinterpreted.

 

[Runestar]

The arcane swordsage variant is widely perceived to be extremely unbalanced (read: broken) in gameplay, though I admit that also stems partially from its entry being so brief and vague that it is not clear just how it is supposed to be used.

The first problem is it effectively having unlimited spells (assuming they are refreshed in accordance with its recovery mechanic).

Next, are the spells SU abilities like the maneuvers themselves (meaning they ignore xp/material components), SLAs, or actual casting spells? Do they provoke AoOs? Suffer from ASF? Do you need a high enough wis or int to be able to cast them?

If it was not broken in your game, I am willing to wager that is because the player controlling the swordsage was not playing it to its fullest capabilities, rather than this being an indicator of its limited usefulness.

Even at 1st lv, a swordsage already gets 4 spells/encounter, compared to a wizard's 2-3/day. Later on, they get as much as 8+ spells/encounter. Outside of combat, spamming them is simply a matter of alternating between them and adaptive style. This means they can cast all the buffing spells prior to combat, then swap in combat spells just before combat starts as a full-round action.

Even a normal classed sorcerer is hard pressed to match this sort of raw staying power. How is that not gamebreaking? There are seriously a ton of issues you need to address first, It is just not worth the effort, IMO.

 

[Glade Riven]

The particular character in question used a few spells in place of maneuvers, rather than a total swap. The only one he used with any extensiveness was Dimension Door as one more way to teleport around the battlefield. They were ran as spells and recharged like maneuvers. Our DM's style is typically not to give us 5 minutes of in-character time to buff up before a fight, and it takes 5 minutes to swap out readied maneuvers, so that never has come up.

I suppose I see the arcane swordsage as a "suggested houserule" rather than a "set in stone" hot-swap, in which case the advice of 3.5's DMG comes in to play - be very careful when doing such a thing.

Which brings me back to the reason I posted this thread.

On the Swordsage monk build with the allowing of psionic powers from the Psychic Warrior list...I can see where the multi-buff issue may come into play, especially the damage reduction ones. Having a buff psi-power = a boost maneuver may be a good counter for that - it forces the player to choose, and can only have one buff going at a time until level 20 (in which it increases to two).

 

[Dandu]

I didn't state that you were wrong, I stated that I've seen it work out in a manner that wasn't game breaking.

I've seen druids played in ways that weren't game breaking. Doesn't mean that the class isn't badly in need of an overhaul.