Discussion - General Discussion Thread '08

[Halford]

An excellent choice, I will send them both the proposal.

 

[Knight Otu]

The LEW judges have asked Covaithe and Trouvere to join the august ranks of LEW judges. And they have kindly accepted. Thank you both, for volunteering to help out this board. I'll go update the judges profiles.

Congrats, guys!

 

[Knight Otu]

Question: Do we want to continue using the existing external Wiki? Or do we want to move over to the ENWiki? A few articles have already been moved here by Rae, but most aren't. It doesn't seem like there is all that much going on at the other wiki, either. Would there be more happening if the wiki were here?

 

[orsal]

psicrystal feat ruling

Two related questions have come up in the process of character approval:
(1) The statblock given for a psicrystal (Psicrystal :: d20srd.org) has Alertness as a feat. Can a player substitute a different feat?
(2) As psicrystals gain hit dice, do they gain additional feats?

Arguments for yes and yes:
* The feat is not identified as a bonus feat in the statblock. That suggests it is a standard first-level (first-hit-die) feat. Such choices are considered typical but not mandatory.
* "A monster's total Hit Dice...govern its acquisition of feats and ability score increases." (Improving Monsters :: d20srd.org)

Arguments for no and no:
* The psicrystal rules say "Use the statistics for a psicrystal, but make the following changes." (Psion :: d20srd.org). No change to feats is listed.
* Familiars do not gain feats as they advance, and psicrystals are analogous to familiars.

Does anybody have any further insight into these questions? Know of an authoritative or semi-authoritative ruling?

 

[Rae ArdGaoth]

Finals week, among other troubles, have kept me from enjoying the boards recently. It'll all be over soon, and I'll be back to full capacity.

 

[Scott DeWar]

Finals week, among other troubles, have kept me from enjoying the boards recently. It'll all be over soon, and I'll be back to full capacity.

no worries. it is that time of the year. it is expected. in case it doesnt get said:
Happy Rama Hana Quasa Mas to all!!

 

[Halford]

Two related questions have come up in the process of character approval:
(1) The statblock given for a psicrystal (Psicrystal :: d20srd.org) has Alertness as a feat. Can a player substitute a different feat?
(2) As psicrystals gain hit dice, do they gain additional feats?

Arguments for yes and yes:
* The feat is not identified as a bonus feat in the statblock. That suggests it is a standard first-level (first-hit-die) feat. Such choices are considered typical but not mandatory.
* "A monster's total Hit Dice...govern its acquisition of feats and ability score increases." (Improving Monsters :: d20srd.org)

Arguments for no and no:
* The psicrystal rules say "Use the statistics for a psicrystal, but make the following changes." (Psion :: d20srd.org). No change to feats is listed.
* Familiars do not gain feats as they advance, and psicrystals are analogous to familiars.

Does anybody have any further insight into these questions? Know of an authoritative or semi-authoritative ruling?

A long standing argument that is simply not settled within the rules. I believe it is rather simply to sort out if we consider a balanced approach.

Psi-crystals are at least as powerful as familiars, probably more so. Though it does cost a feat to acquire a Psi-crystal it is more versitile and better protected than a familiar, with hardness, a climb speed and the ability to be further improved with excellent static "familiar" bonus abilities. It later acquires a fly speed and the ability to serve as a translator to any creature with a language, even potentially to serve as a permanent mini Rary's Telepathic Bond.

In short to allow Psi-crystals feats would be to send them into the stratosphere compared to familiars.

Rules wise we might also consider that the same rules for monster advancement which grant feats also grant skill and save increases which a Psi-crystal specifically does not recieve.

Especially in this forum, which I have always been astonished allows Psionics given their power relative to SRD only classes, allowing feats, etc., for psi-crystals would be vergeing upon the ludicrous.

In my view Psi-crystals should be merged wholly into the familiar rule with the same rules upon destruction as well. But as I have mentioned rules wise Wizards did an incredibly poor job fleshing out the details.

 

[Knight Otu]

My reading is that psicrystals do not get "real" Hit Dice, much like a familiar doesn't, with the unusual hit point calculation, which it shares with familiars, rather than hit points as a construct (I haven't checked, but there may easily be circumstances where a psicrystal has a lower hp maximum than a construct of its Hit Dice could have). Following from that, it doesn't gain any other benefits from Hit Dice other than what the psicrystal description states.

Likewise, I do believe that neither familiars nor psicrystals should have feat choices different from the base creature.

 

[Dire Tadpole]

Psicrystal

It is my character that motivated the discussion about psicrystal feats. I am in the difficult position where I am arguing that I character option I have chosen is not over-powered. I recognize that given this self interest, one may ask what dirty trick I am trying to sneak past the judges.

Let me be upfront then. I swapped the psicrystal's first HD feat, which in the example given in the srd is Alertness, for Dodge. I intend to have the psicrystal take mobility when it reachs 3rd level. At 3rd level the psicrystal also obtains the Deliever touch powers abilities, since the psicrystal has 0' reach, this will help protect it against any AoO opportunities it draws for entering an opponites square to deliever a touch power.

To me it, the rules are clear. The psicrystal is an intelligent construct. All inteligent constructs have feats based on the number of hit dice they have. The psicrystal has special rules for skill points, saves, and hit points. But feats and BAB are not modified from the standard rules.

Familiars have their own Hit Dice depending on the type of animal it is. For effects that depend on Hit Dice the master's class level may be substituted if it is higher. These are the psuedo hit dice Knight Otu referred to. Contrast this to the Druid's Animal companion, which as it gains its bonus hit dice acquires the benfits of those dice (such as skill points and feats.)

To me the rules concerning psicrystal construction are clear that they receive feats just as any other intelligent creature does, depending on their hit dice. It is then that Halford's question should be addressed, is the psicrystal unbalancing?

I do not agree with his assertion that psionics is over powered compared to the other base classes. However, that is neither here nor there.

I do agree that the rules concerning the destruction of a psicrystal are not provided, and they really must be adopted before it happens to any of the characters on LEW. I would ague against adopting the familiar rules however, it is the loss of XP and the long waiting period that often make the familiar too much of a liability to the wizard or sorcerer.

I will not argue that the psion's psicrystal is not better than the wizard's familiar. Hardness 8 and telepathic speech at level 5 is rather nifty. I do think that the opportunity cost for the psicrystal has been dismissed to easily.

The psicrystal requires a feat to obtain, really then we should not be comparing the psicrystal to a regular familiar, but to the improved familiars which also require a feat to obtain. In such a case, the psicrystal is not so much obviously better.

Look at the the 5th level wizard with an small earth elemental familiar, or a 7th level wizard with a ice mephit familiar. Both are probably going to come out ahead of the psion's psicrystal. (Especially that Ice Mephit)

 

[Dire Tadpole]

Psicrystal

Double Post - Sorry