Expanded Psionics Handbook Play Use?

[Piratecat]

Thank you, Dave -- I was just about to hunt that up!

 

[Syntallah]

-snip-

One question. In Dragon Magazine they had one additional psionic class called the Erudite. I don't get it. How different is it from a psion?

AriesOmega

The Erudite class from the Dragon is akin to the Wizard spellcasting class, they get their powers from study and formula rather than raw natural ability.

(the Psion is akin to the Sorcerer)

 

[Piratecat]

Yup. The erudite has lots of powers (and can learn more from people he meets), but can only choose a certain number of them to use in any given day. It's a good example of controlled flexibility.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Pireatecat, where is that thread? I looked throught some odd tweleve pages but either missed it or didn't go far enough with the search. (Did some some phenominal examples of rules mastery though with a fighter and daggers...)

 

[Henry]

I don't think I came up with the variant rule Henry mentioned above for energy substitution, but I like it.

Memory tells me that you suggested it in one of those "Do you like the XPH" threads back from late april/early may, when I and one other poster suggested we were leery of Psionics users being able to use every energy type at will. You then started to talk about a Psychic Warrior in a game you were playing in, and talking about how the new rules didn't unbalance him that you could see.

Memory, however, may be a conniving liar.

 

[Patlin]

I played a half-giant psychic warrior in our last pick up game (i.e. when not everyone we needed for our normal campaign showed up, so we threw something else together.) I love this character! Definitely my 1st choice when we start a new campaign.

Re: the bastard sword question, the way it would work in 3.5 is that the half giant could wield a large long sword in one hand, which is similar to wielding a medium bastard sword in one hand. Personally, I recomend a Large Falchion with the mindfeeder ability...

Re: The BAB -- Very powerfull character, +1 per level BAB would throw the balance way off.

 

[Staffan]

I house-ruled Energy Missile (+2 PP gives you +1d6 and +1 DC)

That's a bit harsh. Almost all the other Energy powers do 1d6 per PP and get +1 DC per +2d6 augmentation. That's what I'm using for Energy missile. I'm considering either demanding that you split damage between targets (like Magic Missile) or require separate augmentation to affect more than one target.

As a not-really-that-extreme example, consider the 11th-level psion. He gets Piosnic Disintegrate (a spell/power that, with the exception of SR, there's no effective counter-measure), and deals 22d6.

Note that that's 22d6 with a save for 5d6, not save for half. It also requires a ranged touch attack - which admittedly isn't that much of a problem at 11th level (though most of the targets that are easily hit have pretty high Fort saves).

 

[Sir Elton]

Psionic weapon does +2d8, and the earliest it is available is 7th level, not 5th.

I believe he was talking about the feat.

PSIONIC WEAPON [PSIONIC]

You can charge your melee weapon with additional damage potential.

Prerequisite: Str 13.

Benefit: To use this feat, you must expend your psionic focus.

Your attack with a melee weapon deals an extra 2d6 points of damage. You must decide whether or not to use this feat prior to making an attack. If your attack misses, you still expend your psionic focus.

 

[Perun]

That's a bit harsh. Almost all the other Energy powers do 1d6 per PP and get +1 DC per +2d6 augmentation. That's what I'm using for Energy missile. I'm considering either demanding that you split damage between targets (like Magic Missile) or require separate augmentation to affect more than one target.

Yes, I'm aware of the standard energy powers damage augmentation, but the EM is just so darn good. Hitting up to five targets (generally, up to three, but in dungeons hitting all five targets is not unreaosnable), without a miss chance, and each target taking full damage...

I thought about re-writing the augmentation bit, and requiring separate augmentation for additional targets beyond the first, but I wanted to introduce as few house-ruled changes until I saw the class in actual game play, and until the offical errata comes out.

Note that that's 22d6 with a save for 5d6, not save for half. It also requires a ranged touch attack - which admittedly isn't that much of a problem at 11th level (though most of the targets that are easily hit have pretty high Fort saves).

Yes, and the fact that it requires both a ranged touch attack and allows a Fort save is the only thing why I didn't ban it alltogether.

The thing is (or, at least the way I see it) that standard spellasters are limited by their spell slots. There's a purpose behind why a wizard gets only a single spell iof every new level at first, because those spells are (generally) more powerful and effective than those of lower level. With power points such system doesn't work as well. As I said in my previous post, a 11th-level spion could manifest 11 Psionic Disintegrations. He'll rarelly be pressed to use two or three in any given encounter. That's 4-5 encounters in a day. And there's no defence against disintegration (apart from the attack and save thing).

Like I said, I really like the system. It's just that the psion is proving to be better at many things than the ordinary spellcasters. He's better at inflicting damage, he's better at dispelling (both psionics and magic), he's better at bringing back the dead (an egoist can bring back a dead person at 9th level without a level loss (!!!), and you'd ordinarily require a 17th-level cleric and a 25,000 gp for such a feat), he's better at scrying...

What I'm trying to say is that because of the differences between spell slot and power point systems, spells shoud be more powerful than powers of equal level. Because the psion can manifest more high-level powers than a sorcerer, let alone wizard, can ever hope for.

The 3.0 psionic offensive powers were bad -- non-scaling, and dealing less damage. But the 3.5 versions are too good. They do scale and they do inflict more damage (because of the built-in goodies in all energy powers).

In my experience, when a party is confronted with a enemy of appropriate level, the sorcerer/wizard role is to weaken the enemy (by using their higher-level spells) so that the fighter in the party could go for a kill. It's not frequently that a wizard will be able to deal with an enemy all by himself (or, at least, not until higher levels). As the arcanist starts using his lower level spells (because he already cast all of his high-level ones), the enemy's chances of survival increase (because of the lower save DCs and, frequently, because of the smaller amounts of damage dealt). The psion avoids all these limitations. He has enough PPs to use generally as much high-level-equivalent powers as he needs. This is very important in climatic battles against the BBEGs. He will generally use a larger portion of his daily manifesting potential than a wizard or a sorcerer will, but (to go back to my earlier example) 11 disintergates should be enough for at least two major combat encounters.

Now my players are starting to notice how powerful the psion really is, and even the wizard's player (the best role-player in the group, he'll play whatever character he likes, regardless of how "weak" it is -- once he rolled a 25-point buy equivalent rogue, and played him for 5 levels along a 45-point buy equivalent fighter/psywar) noticed that a lower-level psion (psion is 4th level right now, and wizard is 5th) is just as effective in combat, and sometimes even more so.

I really, really wish they put that errata on their site.

 

[I'm A Banana]

My group is a big fan of it; it's got a pretty central role in races, if not classes, IMC.

I'll go through the list:

Dromites: No one has played one yet, but they've met them as an industrious low-caste crafting race (they work with the base materials that the elites are a cut above).

Duergar: About to meet them as a BIG force of unpleasantness in their current incarnation, as some obnoxious people protecting a great evil god (mostly because the were tainted by it).

Elans: The elite upper caste IMC, these mystics are the kings and queens of the land...but surprisingly rare...

Githyanki: With the amount of planar holes IMC, the Githyanki are known as a militaristic people from beyond, often recruited as warrior-caste.

Githzerai: Well, these guys are *responsible* for the holes in space-time, so...yeah, they're important.

Half-Giants: Got a guy playing a Psychic Warrior Half-Giant who specializes in claws and bites; he just died to the Duergar's little helpers. Half-giants are re-named Giantkin IMC (there's no half-races), and they're a slave race of laborers (guy's now going to be playing a Ceptu Nomad...heh.)

Maenads: An elite race of priests 'siezed by the gods' when they Outburst, these guys are about to become a big political problem.

Thri-Kreen: Desert-folk on the outskirts, recently almost obliterated by the Dark God Ophiuchus. They've been a constant neutral for the PC's.

Xephs: One of the sorority sistas played a Xeph swashbuckler and was very happy with it, but it died in the implementation. These are foreigners, again, from the coast.

Psions: My own house rule keeps in the varied ability scores determined by discipline, except that one ability score governs all the powers...Egoist is Con, Kineticist is Int, Nomad is Dex, Seer is Wis, Shaper is Str, and Telepath is Cha (this combines nicely with my already-implemented Polymorph house rules). This has worked out swimmingly so far. These are the religious figures IMC.

Psychic Warrior: The guy who played a half-giant was one of these specialized in claws and bites, and was a bit of a machine, designed to provoke agro mostly....I had to use some mind-affecting things to screw 'em over this time. These guys are the primary military warrior caste.

Soulknife: Meh. It's great balance-wise, but it's a bit flavorless; they're a special monk-like order IMC, specifically for those warriors who don't belong to a caste already (since being a Soulknife makes you an Untouchable).

Wilder: Great for wacky forest hermits, the Wilder hasn't seen a lot of use yet...

Powers: So far, so good.
Prestige Classes: The Ceptu is going for Metamind....*shrug*.
Monsters: I have had a Blue PC (who was a Conjurer), and he seemed balanced, though he didn't take any pshychic powers. I also may be having an Unbodied PC on my hands soon, but we'll see how she likes not having levels...