Elans: Too Good?

[Zipher]

Hi all,

Is it me or is any Psionicically multi-classed (Psion, Wilder, etc) Elan character too powerful?

The benefits I'm talking about are:
- Can trade 1 PP to reduce damage by 2HP (immediate action).
- Can trade 1 PP for a +4 universal saving throw until the next round (immediate action).
- You get 2 more PP.

Assuming you multi-class your Psion with a Melee/Rogue type, you get a very versatile combination, your PP become a very liquid resource which you can instantly shift from/to:
- Power any power you know,
- Convert directly to HP as needed,
- Boost saving throws at the moment you need them

All this for +0 Level adjustment...

Am I missing something? Does "immediate action" really mean you can do it in response to something happening? i.e.
DM: "Fireball for 18 damage, DC 16"
Me: "I trade 1 PP for a +4 to my save as a fast effect"

Or do I have to declare it before the fireball is cast?


Thoughts?

-Zipher

P.S. - I've included the Elan description from the SRD for reference... Perhaps the description in XPH is different?



ELANS

• –2 Charisma

• Aberration: Elans are not subject to spells or effects that affect humanoids only, such as charm person or dominate person.

• Medium: As Medium creatures, elans have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.

• Elan base land speed is 30 feet.

• Elans (unlike most aberrations) do not have darkvision.

• Naturally Psionic: Elans gain 2 bonus power points at 1st level. This benefit does not grant them the ability to manifest powers unless they gain that ability through another source, such as levels in a psionic class.

• Resistance (Su): Elans can use psionic energy to increase their resistance to various forms of attack. As an immediate action, an elan can spend 1 power point to gain a +4 racial bonus on saving throws until the beginning of her next action.

• Resilience (Su): When an elan takes damage, she can spend power points to reduce its severity. As an immediate action, she can reduce the damage she is about to take by 2 hit points for every 1 power point she spends.

• Repletion (Su): An elan can sustain her body without need of food or water. If she spends 1 power point, an elan does not need to eat or drink for 24 hours.

• Automatic Language: Common. Bonus Languages: Any (other than secret languages, such as Druidic). Elans’ past lives expose them to wide ranges of language.

• Favored Class: Psion.

• Level Adjustment: +0.

 

[Scion]

They are fine as is.

Trading in one class resource in order to fuel, generally inefficient, racial abilities isnt as powerful as it may seem.

First of all, no racial bonus to stats but they do get a penalty. That is pretty bad.

Secondly, immediate actions. Notice that you cannot use both of his racial abilities at once at the same time, or even per round. For a single, massive hit it may be all right (although there are many other powers that would do better, especially for the massive cost of it) but several moderates and it is very bad indeed.

For the most part someone is better off getting a race with abilities that are 'on' more often. Even the halflings +1 to all saves works out to be effectively equal in power level to the +4 sometimes that you have to pay for (3 times, once racially, once pp wise, and again with the action, ouch).

There are many threads that go over this in more detail, I dont have time right now ;/ maybe someone would be kind enough to do a search and post up some of them.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

They are fine as is.

I'm not so sure.

Trading in one class resource in order to fuel, generally inefficient, racial abilities isnt as powerful as it may seem.

How is 1pp for a +4 bonus to a save inefficient? Since it's an immediate action, it's always effective against one save, and the race gives you 2pp above and beyond any other pp's it might get from class levels. That's a +4 bonus to the first two saving throws of the day. And unless it's further clarified in the book, it's a +4 unnamed bonus, meaning it's just as useful at 20th-level as it is at 1st. And at 1st, it's the equivalent of a +4 Cloak of Resistance twice a day.

First of all, no racial bonus to stats but they do get a penalty. That is pretty bad.

A -2 to Charisma is hardly "pretty bad." If it were Str, Dex, or Con, sure. But a -2 to Charisma only hinders two classes to any degree: bard and paladin. If you aren't a bard or paladin, charisma was probably your dump stat anyway.

For the most part someone is better off getting a race with abilities that are 'on' more often. Even the halflings +1 to all saves works out to be effectively equal in power level to the +4 sometimes that you have to pay for (3 times, once racially, once pp wise, and again with the action, ouch).

I'm not sure how you're figuring this. For me, it's not even close. You usually only have to make a handful of saving throws each day. I'll take a +4 to two of them (all of them if I'm a psionic class, which is very likely,) over a +1 to all of them any day.

I'm not quite sure this race is overpowered, since the dwarf is also a legal +0 race and gets a huge pile of goodies. But I'd say the Elan is about equal with the dwarf, and far superior to the half-orc and half-elf.

 

[Zipher]

Does that mean any character may only do ONE "immediate action" per round?

 

[Droid101]

Does that mean any character may only do ONE "immediate action" per round?

That's correct. So if you blow that action on your +4 to save and then some baddie comes by and smacks you for 30 damage, you're out of luck. No damage absorbing.

Only Paladins and Bards? Um... the Wilder, which is a psionic class, and one far more likely to be taken as the Elan race, also uses charisma as the base stat.

The race is fine. The one immediate action per round limits them.

 

[Mr. Kaze]

The power to convert Power Points to DR vs. Anything is pretty potent, especially on a Psion who doesn't have enough HP to start with. It really annoys and befuddles the heck out of psion-killing rogues who are trying to dish out that sneak attack damage to disrupt spells or powers. The problem is that the Psion will be eating through his/her PP at an incredible rate if they're relying on them to not only keep them alive but also kill everybody else, so this ability still requires some good tactical sense to use. All it ensures is that you won't die before the Bard.

The food/water effect is pretty nifty if you're keeping track of rations in your game. We typically don't, as most divine casters can create such things.

The +4 saves bonus is nice, doubly so because it lasts for an entire round. But compared to the dwarves' +2 to all saves vs. spells, it's not nearly so nifty to have an activation cost on it.

The charisma penalty is a wash -- if you're playing a Wilder with an Elan, then you're not doing it for the manifesting capabilities anyway. (This is probably true of all Wilders, actually... )

Being an aberration is kind of nice as it makes you more resilient to lots of powers and spells that primarily target humanoids. But it's not so useful against Fireball or Crystal Shard.

Overall, the race only has one real strength which only comes into play if the character is built to play into it. The comparison to dwarves is fair -- dwarves are familiar with a bevvy of racial weapons and can wear medium or heavy armor without movement penalty... but you have to have martial weapon proficiency and probably want those armor proficiencies, too. So being a dwarven Wizard or Rogue or Monk sacrifices a lot of the racial powers of being a dwarf. Similarly, being an Elan Cleric or Sorceror or, well, anything that doesn't get more Power Points with level means that you're not getting much more benefit out of your race than a human rogue that took "Combat Casting" as their bonus 1st level feat.

That's what I've seen.
::Kaze

 

[Scion]

How is 1pp for a +4 bonus to a save inefficient?

The generally part there was talking about the other two abilities really.

-2/pp vs +5hp/pp (vigor), or a number of other powers that help to resist/negate/avoid damage altogether. Overall it is generally inefficient.

The food is effectively a nonissue, but it does cut down on the ability to resist damage or whatever during the day Since food is more or less 'free' in every campaign I have ever been in (if you have 1k gold, can perform any sort of special task, have friends, it is generally a nonissue).

The +4 to saves is nice, but it costs an immediate action and a pp. But, if you have to choose between useing a power, useing your other racial ability, doing nothing (as in, maybe you will need that immediate action for something more important in a moment or whatever), or something else it can be pretty rough.

However, there have been several people who have weighed in with actual game experience. Most of them said that they hardly ever even used the racial abilities. In an emergency it might be able to be used as a panic button, but it is not assured. Failing that, if you dont use them then your class only has the racial ability of '-2 cha'. Not exactly something to fall all over.

They are nice abilities sure, but they just arent the end all or be all. Most of the time the halflings +1 or the dwarfs situational +2 are simply better. They dont cost extra resources such as pp and actions, they work while unconscious, and the race gets other stuff as well (really, the dwarf also gets +2 con, which means every level he has an always on psuedo damage reduction anyway, plus it does a ton of other things that are good).

The -2 cha may not hurt certain builds (like those who dont really want to talk with people very often, or arent worried about offending) but it is still there and there is no stat bonus to balance it. Effectively it is just an extra punishment in case the other abilities are too strong. Play experience that I have seen shows that the primary abilities are indeed not too strong so that makes the extra stat penalty a bit much.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Scion, I hate to say this, and I do not mean it as an insult, but when it comes to anything psionic, I don't think your opinion is objective. You seem to downplay every psionic advantage, and play up every psionic weakness.

My own post earlier indicated my belief that the Elan may not be overpowered compared to the dwarf, but the race is certainly on the strong side of +0, something you seem unwilling to admit and which strikes me as painfully obvious.

The class grants 2 pps, allowing the +4 to saves to be used twice with no cost whatsoever. That ability only gets better if you're a psion, and can afford to use it twice more a day. Heck, you could play an elan fighter and pick up a feat to gain a few extra pps a day, and effectively use it as much as you need to each day.

Aberration-type is even better than Outsider-type, since you aren't subject to spells and effects that target Outsiders (and there aren't any spells or effects that specifically target Aberrations that I'm aware of.) The only other way to get this immunity is through a +1 LA race like aasimar or tiefling, or through the level 10 abilities of a handful of prestige classes.

Being able to use pp's to heal is, I agree, a less than overwhelming ability if you play a non-psionic class. If you do pick up a psionic class, it's one more way to keep your character alive. Sure, you may not use it as standard-operating-proceedure, but if you only have 20 hp left and get hit for 31, you're going to be able to stay alive, whereas a non-elan is toast.

However, there have been several people who have weighed in with actual game experience. Most of them said that they hardly ever even used the racial abilities.

If by "several other people" you mean Mr. Kaze, then you're partially correct. Except that he seemed to agree with me that the race is, if complimented by a class that plays to its strengths, quite strong.

Again, so long as a DM is satisfied with the dwarf, the elan isn't out of line. But it's definitely playing on the strong side of the spread.

 

[Psion]

Am I missing something? Does "immediate action" really mean you can do it in response to something happening? i.e.
DM: "Fireball for 18 damage, DC 16"
Me: "I trade 1 PP for a +4 to my save as a fast effect"

I thought that it was a general rule that you can't declare a modifier like that after the effects of the save have been determined/announced.

So if you already know how much damage you took, it's too late.

 

[Kelleris]

Scion, I hate to say this, and I do not mean it as an insult, but when it comes to anything psionic, I don't think your opinion is objective.

Just like to weigh in as agreeing with Lord Pendragon on this point, as well as regarding the elan's power level. It feels too powerful to me, but not more so than the dwarf does. Then again, I have seen a marked increase in the number of dwarf characters lately. :\

I have had one player use an elan since the XPH came out, and the +4 on saves was used fairly frequently. It is especially annoying to me since it regularly leads to the elan making a save the rest of the party failed, and I frequently get the impression that that character doesn't fail any saving throws. That may just be my impression, though.

Zipher, your example is a bit unclear. You get to decide to use it after you are cast upon and before you roll the save. How much info the DM gives you before you actually roll the save depends on the game, I think. I probably wouldn't give damage and save DC to a player with an elan like that, though, as it makes the ability somewhat more powerful.

By the way, why the heck are elans aberrations? According to the MM, that implies a bizarre physiology or an alien mindset. Elan look exactly like humans and think exactly like them, too. Weird.

For that matter, why the Charisma penalty on the most naturally-psionic race? For all of 3e charisma's represented a quasi-mystical "force of personality", which elan's would seem to have in spades. I mean, they can ignore a stab from a dagger just by thinkin' real hard. And they look just like humans otherwise, so physical appearance isn't a factor either? Do elans just have ugly babies? Maybe Cordell was just looking for a dump stat to "balance" the race?