Discussion - General Discussion Thread '08

[Halford]

While I appreciate your point Dire Tadpole, that it is an intelligent construct and should gain benefits as such I believe there are several points that make the intent clear - although the rules are not.

If it were in fact supposed to gain abilities as a leveled up construct it ought also to gain saves as such. It does not.

If it were in fact supposed to gain abilities as a leveled up construct it ought also to gain skills as such. It does not.

If it were in fact supposed to gain abilities as a leveled up construct it ought also to gain hp as such. It does not.

All of these things are exactly the same as a familiar.

I play a Psion in a game where all the books are allowed and my group considers Kiro, my Psi-crystal, to be vastly overpowered without feats.

The argument that Psi-crstals cost a feat to get and as such should be better than familiars is also highly suspect in my book. A Psi-crystal is effectively three feats for the price of one, you gain alertness, the personality benefit all of which are as good as a feat in their own right, and a Psi-crystal. If there is a better feat available please let me know what it is because I'll be damned if I can think of one! Improved Familiar is not on a par in my view as it takes away the familiar benefit, the choices are limited by alignment, and it requires a more coveted higher level feat slot - I believe you still keep alertness? Psi-crystals are of course available at first level.

Lets take the example of that earth elemental and compare it to a ninth level Psi-crystal, because effectively that is whn a creature available at 7th level becomes available due to feat progression. The Psi-crystal is more durable, thanks to hardness, can fly, can converse with and translate for any creature with a language, and can enable silent telepathic communication between the party at will. The earth elemental can earth glide - which is not to be sniifed at.

It is also worth noteing that in the Psi-crystal advancement entry there is a dash. To me this very clearly implies that they advance only in the same manner as familiars.

Additionally there has never been a Psion published by Wizards with a Psi-crystal advanced with feats.

The real question is are Psi-crystals supposed to be close analogues of familiars or not. I think it is clear that they are, they were even gained as a class feature back in 3rd edition, and even by that interpretation they are far superior.

 

[Dire Tadpole]

Psicrystal Feats

I see that there are two points being made. 1) Since the psicrystal is a close analogue to the familiar, and a familiar does not gain hit dice as its master advances, a psicrystal does not gain hit dice as it's master advances. 2) A psicrystal is such a good feat choice anyway, allowing a psicrystal to have feats for its hit dice is overpowering.

If it were in fact supposed to gain abilities as a leveled up construct it ought also to gain saves as such. It does not.

If it were in fact supposed to gain abilities as a leveled up construct it ought also to gain skills as such. It does not.

If it were in fact supposed to gain abilities as a leveled up construct it ought also to gain hp as such. It does not.

You are right that in these respects the psicrystal is similar to the familiar, there are other similairites as well such as the psicrystal granted abilities, that make it clear the psicrystal is modeled after the familiar. However, the examples provided are also explicitly mentioned to be execeptions to the normal monster generation rules.

Yet even the familiar gains feats according to its hit dice. It is just the familiar never gains any additional hit dice from being a familiar. A psicrystal however, does have a number of hit dice based on the number of hit dice it's master has.

It is undeniable that the the sample psicrystal given in the SRD has the Alertness feat. Even if the sentiment of the judges turned against allowing the psicrystal's feats for its hit dice, I am sure, psicrystal's would still be allowed that feat. Where did it come from?

A monster gains feats just as a character does. Sometimes a creature has one or more bonus feats, marked with a superscript B (B). Creatures often do not have the prerequisites for a bonus feat. If this is so, the creature can still use the feat. If you wish to customize the creature with new feats, you can reassign its other feats, but not its bonus feats. A creature cannot have a feat that is not a bonus feat unless it has the feat’s prerequisites.

Normally monsters have feats from two sources, from their Hit Dice, or a bonus feats. The psicrystal, as has been noted, also has some special generation rules.

The alertness feat given in the example is not marked with a superscript B, so it is not a bonus feat. None of the psicrystal rules, give the psicrystal the alertness feat. The alertness feat in the example psicrystal (which is marked as being for a 1st level manifester) comes from its 1 HD.

I play a Psion in a game where all the books are allowed and my group considers Kiro, my Psi-crystal, to be vastly overpowered without feats.

The argument that Psi-crstals cost a feat to get and as such should be better than familiars is also highly suspect in my book. A Psi-crystal is effectively three feats for the price of one, you gain alertness, the personality benefit all of which are as good as a feat in their own right, and a Psi-crystal. If there is a better feat available please let me know what it is because I'll be damned if I can think of one!

I will not argue that the psicrystal affinity feat is not a good feat. I agree that it is. Your are right that personality benfits are equivalent to a skill focus or one of the save improvement feats (but then the familiar benefits are the same.) To a character that would have chosen to take alertness or one of the the skill focusefeats anyway (and not to meet some prerequisite), psicrystal affinity is a a great bargain. However, for those characters that would not have chosen such a feat, they are nice benefits.

But let us pull back from that discussion, and look at it from another angle. Does allowing the psicrystal feats for its hit dice make it significantly more powerful? With one exception, I do not believe so.

That exception is Leadership. In practice, if a psicrystal was allowed to take leadership it would be the same as giving it to the PC for free. Other than that, what feats are left that the psicrystal meets the requirements for? Do they make the psicrystal overpowered?

(The problem with leadership is the same for the druid's animal companion or the paladin's special mount as they gain HD.)

 

[Trouvere]

I'm away from now until the 29th, with no guaranteed internet access.

 

[Rae ArdGaoth]

I'm on vacation until the 5th, with almost definitely no internet access.

 

[Trouvere]

I apologise for forgetting about the psicrystal issue. Dire Tadpole has probably long since turned into a Dire Frog waiting.

I'm still not sure of the RAW/RAI ins and outs, and I think there is nothing that resolves the issue one way or another, since the argument has raged on various boards for years.

But I share Knight Otu's view as to how we should run psicrystals in LEW. That is, as a creature with an intelligence score, a psicrystal definitely gains one feat, which should be the default of Alertness, but its later familiar-like pseudo-HD do not grant any more feats.

We do have the weak in-LEW precedent of Rystil's characters' psicrystals, since their stats are not listed at all - and surely they would have been if they had different or additional feats? I suppose Psychic Reformation could be used to switch out the default Alertness feat eventually, in any case.

 

[Dire Tadpole]

Thank you for remembering my character.

 

[Trouvere]

Thank you for remembering my character.

There's no reason why he can't put in an appearance in the Red Dragon Inn right now, you know.

 

[covaithe]

As an outsider who's not terribly well versed in psionics, I find myself unconvinced by the arguments that a psycrystal should get additional feats or be able to choose something besides alertness for its opening feat. I might be willing to consider it as a proposal for a house rule, which if it were passed would allow DT's character to switch it out retroactively, but I think the default interpretation has to be that psycrystals only get alertness.

 

[Knight Otu]

Has anyone heard from Halford? It's been a while since he's been online. If not, a question to the judges, is Halford's proposal detailed enough to be successfully run by another DM?

 

[Scott DeWar]

he is MIA from the forgotten treasure map (ivv dm) thread as well.