For Nail - The Psion

[Dracomeander]

Strangely enough, our party's psion doesn't go for this type of power.

Your party's psion is a shaper. He has other powers to concentrate on. Dominate is a telepath only power. The earliest a non-telepath psion can think of acquiring it is by spending an expanded knowledge feat for it at 9th level.

I have two psions I am currently playing and neither of them will pick up dominate. The primary one is in an ECL 15 party. He is a Kineticist 10/ Elocator 2 and is just starting to encounter foes where he believes the kineticist power Control Body will be useful. (Most effective way to neutralize an enemy spellcaster and his fighter bodyguard temporarily is force the spellcaster to attack the bodyguard.) The +3 LA for him comes from the half-dragon template that got slapped on him through campaign circumstances. Didn't like it at the time but has learned to live with it.

The other is still a low level party, ECL 5, and is a Bard 2/ Nomad 3. This character is working toward Shadow Mind from Complete Adventurer. He will probably pick up a couple of telepath powers with expanded knowledge, but Dominate is not one of them. His concentrations are on mobility and information gathering not overt control.

 

[Nail]

Interesting.

Stepping away from the debate for a moment: Our party's psion is played by an excellent player......so I must admit if anyone can find a way to make a powerful character, it'd be him. Currently he's in a party with both a Wiz, a Sor, and a Drd so the comparisons are easy. When I play (rather than DM), I'm the cleric. Again, comparisons with other "magic"-users are very easy, and from both the DM and players sides.

The Psion was added to our party at level ~7. We're now level ~15.

I've been DMing the party through the 4th level of Maure castle (Dungeon magazine adventure, FWIW). Very tough stuff; everyone has died multiple times....except the psion. He's never died. He's never run out of power points during a fight. He's never been the first PC to say "Let's get outta here, I need a recharge".

You can see how my preceptions of Psions is being shaped (Truth in advertising).

A common phrase from the other players around the table: "Oh no...psions aren't at all over-powered."

 

[Thanee]

This is the part that would traditionally be followed by the word "because..." and then an explanation.

Sorry, I thought it was obvious enough.

If you spend 2 additional power points, this power can also affect an animal, fey, giant, magical beast, or monstrous humanoid.

If you spend 4 additional power points, this power can also affect an aberration, dragon, elemental, or outsider in addition to the creature types mentioned above.

For every 2 additional power points you spend, this power can affect an additional target. Any additional target cannot be more than 15 feet from another target of the power.

If you spend 1 additional power point, this power’s duration is 1 hour rather than concentration. If you spend 2 additional power points, this power’s duration is 1 day rather than concentration. If you spend 4 additional power points, this power’s duration is 1 day per manifester level rather than concentration.

Highlighted the most important parts. Do you still need any more explanation?

The only situation, when Dominate Person is actually better is, when you need to up the duration to 1 day per level (the power then becomes a 6th level equivalent with 11 PP) *and* the target is humanoid.

In 90+% of the situations, Psionic Dominate will completely blow that spell away.

For only 1 PP you can change the quite bad concentration duration to 1h, which is more than enough for a lot of applications. For 2 PP you get 1 day, which will suffice for pretty much everything else. Only if you really need 1 day/level, the arcane version has an edge (but how often does that really happen? It's convenient, but almost never necessary... and the option is there, nonetheless, just slightly more expensive, which does not even remotely balance how much cheaper this power is than Dominate Monster in a huge number of situations).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Dracomeander]

Interesting.

Stepping away from the debate for a moment: Our party's psion is played by an excellent player......so I must admit if anyone can find a way to make a powerful character, it'd be him. Currently he's in a party with both a Wiz, a Sor, and a Drd so the comparisons are easy. When I play (rather than DM), I'm the cleric. Again, comparisons with other "magic"-users are very easy, and from both the DM and players sides.

The Psion was added to our party at level ~7. We're now level ~15.

I've been DMing the party through the 4th level of Maure castle (Dungeon magazine adventure, FWIW). Very tough stuff; everyone has died multiple times....except the psion. He's never died. He's never run out of power points during a fight. He's never been the first PC to say "Let's get outta here, I need a recharge".

You can see how my preceptions of Psions is being shaped (Truth in advertising).

A common phrase from the other players around the table: "Oh no...psions aren't at all over-powered."

Is that character's survival due to him being a psion or to him being an excellent player? How do his characters do when he plays another type of character?

In the groups I game with this phenomenon is seen frequently as the players like myself who are seen to be better survive encounters that the other do not. More often than not, it is due to the nature of the player than the class.

IME, I find the fighter/melee specialists to be the most vulnerable to frequent character death compared to other classes irregardless of player competance simply because they put themselves in harm's way more often. Survivability of the other classes seems to be more heavily weighted toward play style and player competance.

 

[Thanee]

so the reason it is too powerful is the very foundation of the entire system of psionics:

whereas casters gain higher level spells that do the same things as lower level spells only with increased effect, the psionic classes have powers that can be scaled to increase their effect with greater effort.

That's not the problem. The problem is... that they can take micro-steps with the augmentation.

They do not need to wait until 17th or 18th level, they can use the power against *everything* at 12th level already, at 10th they can already affect a large amount of targets.

That is the problem (in this specific case, but it's certainly not the only one).


Or in more general words:

The flexibility psions gain is simply too high and not compensated for entirely.

Augmentation costs are the right way to balance that (I actually like the general idea of the augmentation system, just in case, that hasn't been noticed ), but they simply went over the top when piling options on them. The limited power list (as compared to the broad arcane spell list) likewise is not enough. And they made the horrible mistake of basing the psion mostly on the wizard when building the class (standard power level progression, mostly 2 new powers per level, bonus feats, Int as manifester ability, etc), because the psion simply does not work like the wizard.

There are simply too many options and too few restrictions for them!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Nail]

Is that character's survival due to him being a psion or to him being an excellent player? How do his characters do when he plays another type of character?

A good question.

Answer: In my other game, this player led the death-pool with non-psion classes. So, although he is a great player, and his tactics are sound (and his RP is good too, BTW), it has more to do with the class, IMHO.

 

[Nail]

That's not the problem. The problem is... that they can take micro-steps with the augmentation.

Ooooo, good call.

 

[DreamChaser]

That's not the problem. The problem is... that they can take micro-steps with the augmentation.

I see the point you're trying to make, but I don't agree that it is the egregious balance issue that you claim. Again, it is the point of the system. They have flexibility but not unmanagable levels of it. You can predict what they can do, it requires a full round to cast. It has a save and PR.

But clearly, we disagree. I feel that Dominate is a powerful power but not unbalancingly so. Same with Energy Missile. But even for those who do feel that these 2 (TWO, Dos, Duex) or 5 (assuming there are others that have some issues), that is not a problem with psionics. That is a problem with those powers.

I challenge someone to argue how psionics are unbalanced without bringing those powers into play. A system is unbalanced when it can be abused by the majority of the items within it, not when a few outstanding powers are abusable. Individual powers can be house ruled. Biocurrent was like that in 3.0 for me: absurdly over powered. I didn't throw out the system (until 3.5) I altered the power.

DC

 

[KarinsDad]

Your party is also 7th level still, right? Then globes are barely available in the lesser version.

Actually, we are 8th level.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I'm rather surprised that the discussion--which was initially the balance of psionics in general--has come down to just psion vs. sorceror or psion vs. wizard.

The 3.0 haste example is a good one. The 3.5 change didn't just affect casters who could no longer pump out two spells per round. It also had a big impact on melee fighters who could no longer partial charge+full attack. (In fact, it was that ability that my wizard used it for most often in 3.0 since tripling the power of our 6th-7th level fighters didn't use up my other spells). Psions with schism have some of the spellcasting power provided by 3.0 haste. What is less noted, however, is that psiwarriors (and illithid slayers and warminds if a PC can figure a way to get into those classes without psiwarrior levels) re-introduce the melee version of 3.0 haste with hustle and psionic lion's charge. Especially at high levels, the difference between being able to make a full attack and being limited to standard attack is tremendous. Now, Scion and I have had this out previously comparing the psywar to the fighter class and I still think that those two classes are at least in the same ballpark (barring absurd abusiveness like the skin of the proteus). However, the real difference is not going to be between the Fighter 20 and the PsyWar 20. Instead, it's between the fighter 12/PsyWar 4/Warmind 4 or the Fighter 6/Warmind 10 (who somehow talked his DM into Knowledge Psionics as a class skill) and the fighter 20. Even the fighter 16/Psy War 4 gains a huge advantage by being able to make a full attack after moving--so much of one, that I would expect nearly every fighter build in a world with psionics to inlcude some way to get either hustle or psionic lion's charge or a similar ability. [Even if it's only once or twice per day, it's still worth it].