For Nail - The Psion

[KarinsDad]

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.

...

The power of the psionic versions lies in the fact that they're swift actions and therefore can be used to move/charge+full attack in the first round of any combat.
In a combat without round/level buffs active:
Round 1:
Potion= no attacks
Nothing=move + single attack
Psi power=move/charge + full attack

Round 2:
Potion=charge+full attack
Nothing=full attack
Psi power=full attack (or use the power again to move and full attack someone else, but that gets cost prohibitive quickly for characters with only a few psiwar levels).

I think you are blowing a few extra full round attacks per day WAY out of proportion for four reasons:

1) A fourth level Psychic Warrior can only do this 2 or 3 times per day (unless he has a Wisdom of 18 where he could do it 4 times per day).

2) He had to give up +1 BAB for ALL attacks in order to do this (compared to the same level Fighter) which also means that he is pushing back at which levels he can gat iterative attacks.

3) A fourth level Psychic Warrior cannot get iterative attacks until higher level. So, unless he is using the full round attack for a special feat or ability, the earliest this tactic can be used is 7th level.

4) Full Round Attack (if used for iterative attacks) results in the second attack being at -5 to hit, the third attack at -10 to hit, etc. Hence, a full round attack is effectively only worth a single extra attack if you have 3 or more of them, and worth less than that if you have 2. Effectively it is equivalent to a single Attack of Opportunity.


So, in order to gain 2 to 3 additional set of attacks per day at -5, -10, -15, etc. (or 2 to 3 additional full round attacks per day if you use them for something special like Whirlwind), the Psychic Warrior/Fighter compared to the straight Fighter has to push back a level when he gets iterative attacks at all (i.e. 2 attacks at level 7 instead of level 6, 3 attacks at level 12 instead of 11, etc.). Plus, he loses 1 BAB for all of his attacks. Plus, if he is using his PP for this, he is not using them for something else.

If he attempts to increase his PP by taking more levels of Psychic Warrior, he drops his BAB even more and pushes back iterative attacks even more levels.


This is an EXTREMELY minor ability. Combat Reflexes is more uber than this and does not have the BAB downside. This is not unbalanced at all.

 

[Shadowdweller]

What I really like most about the psionic system is arguably the flavor text. Mindwipe temporarily erasing memories and abilities just reads way cooler than enervation, even though it does pretty much the same thing. But I also realize that if powers were simply renamed and reflavoured spells, most folks would simply say, "What's the point?" and would feel somewhat cheated for shelling out good $$$ for the book. As it stands now, far from being perfect, I do find using the XPH rather fun.

It's funny you say that. I personally think that the psion, as is, already has WAAAAY too many powers that are uncreative and formulaic.

I'd much rather have the occasionally abusive power that is open ended...say like Stone Shape for instance....than something that is a rigid +2 or WHATEVER bonus to some ability. Hurray, flavor text says Mindwipe causes negative levels by erasing memory. I'd rather have something instead that encourages creativity on the part of the user. (Example: Delusion: Telepathy, [Mind-affecting] Psion 6 or 7...would cause victim to have some fictitious belief for 1 round/level...with some limitations.)

Which, granted, there ARE some of in the PsiHB. But not nearly enough IMHO.

 

[Vurt]

It's funny you say that. I personally think that the psion, as is, already has WAAAAY too many powers that are uncreative and formulaic.

Well sure, in this case clearly the more colourful flavour text the better. Perhaps a good chunk of it got lopped off to fit the page-count, who knows. I'm not sure about the idea of having zero overlap between powers and spells, though. One thing I have never allowed in my campaigns is the free use of spells from the various Complete books, particularly because I can't keep track of what they all do. As such, I'm actually quite happy that there's a fair bit of overlap between the various spells and powers in the XPH, as it's less I have to remember.

I'd much rather have the occasionally abusive power that is open ended...say like Stone Shape for instance....than something that is a rigid +2 or WHATEVER bonus to some ability. Hurray, flavor text says Mindwipe causes negative levels by erasing memory. I'd rather have something instead that encourages creativity on the part of the user. (Example: Delusion: Telepathy, [Mind-affecting] Psion 6 or 7...would cause victim to have some fictitious belief for 1 round/level...with some limitations.)

Which, granted, there ARE some of in the PsiHB. But not nearly enough IMHO.

False sensory input (Telepath 3), and Psionic modify memory (Telepath 4) may be something of what you're looking for. I do love the telepathy powers simply because they really do require you to be creative. Sadly, not all my players are going to deal well with the open-endedness of that, however. For some of them, the rigid +2 to some ability is going to be good enough. But I totally agree, psionics has the potential to be very different, ultimately not in the way things are handled, but simply in how they are described. Yes, someone casting magic missile can describe it as summoning forth a pair of pulsing black daggers, and sending them forth with a casual flick of the wrist to unerringly plunge into the victim, but it is rare that anyone actually goes to the trouble. Everyone has seen magic missile hundreds of times already, and the extra effort just isn't taken. Now with crystal shard, however... A new system encourages a fresh perspective.

And I agree, I do wish there was more of it. But something is better than nothing, in this case.

Cheers,
Vurt

 

[Shadowdweller]

Yes, someone casting magic missile can describe it as summoning forth a pair of pulsing black daggers, and sending them forth with a casual flick of the wrist to unerringly plunge into the victim, but it is rare that anyone actually goes to the trouble. Everyone has seen magic missile hundreds of times already, and the extra effort just isn't taken.

Hmm. Apologies if what I said was confusing. But I don't think you quite got the heart of what I was saying.

Please allow me to clarify:

[Sarcasm]Hurray, flavor text says Mindwipe causes negative levels by erasing memory. [/Sarcasm] I'd rather have something instead that encourages creativity on the part of the user.

That is to say, creativity based on versatile, open-ended, and thematically appropriate spells rather than rigid numerical mechanics and different discriptions/explanations for identical effects.

 

[Psion]

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.

I find wizards/psions PLENTY vulnerable. For one reason: their HP total.

I think you are correct tha melee types necessarily put themselves in harms way and are always "playing the odds" as it were.

But against oponents with good strategy (which can be a player or GM factor), taking a little effort to take out the enemy's "heavy artillery" goes a long ways, becaus their HP total and AC are typiclly so low.

If you have a psion that never really gets hurt, might I suggest that the DM is the weakest link?

Goodbye.

 

[Dracomeander]

I find wizards/psions PLENTY vulnerable. For one reason: their HP total.

I think you are correct tha melee types necessarily put themselves in harms way and are always "playing the odds" as it were.

But against oponents with good strategy (which can be a player or GM factor), taking a little effort to take out the enemy's "heavy artillery" goes a long ways, becaus their HP total and AC are typiclly so low.

If you have a psion that never really gets hurt, might I suggest that the DM is the weakest link?

Goodbye.

You missed the point. I did not say that wizards/psions were not vulnerable. Only that play style and player competance have a greater factor in their survival.

My psions and wizards get hurt, but they always have a way to escape and heal while continuing the combat. And they generally have better protection from the enemy's artillerist than the melee specialists.

However, no character is capable of continuously avoiding an orchestrated effort to take him out without help from an outside source like a teammate. If a DM wants to focus all his efforts towards removing my character, that leaves openings for the rest of the team to deal with the problem.

I have actually had my character taunt an opponent that was beyond my character's ability to defeat just to get them to focus on my character and bring them into range of my teammates' weapons. It was a painful but calculated tactic. I estimated that my teammates would be able to defeat the opponent before the opponent could kill my character and was proved correct.

 

[Psion]

You missed the point. I did not say that wizards/psions were not vulnerable. Only that play style and player competance have a greater factor in their survival.

Which is not so far off of what I was saying.

Do not assume that just because I am replying to you it's a rebuttal. It may just have been a good place to insert my own point.

 

[Nail]

I find wizards/psions PLENTY vulnerable. For one reason: their HP total.

Unless they've taken steps to remove that vulnerability. Psions are especially good at doing that.

If you have a psion that never really gets hurt, might I suggest that the DM is the weakest link?

You might. In some games, I'm sure that's the issue. In my games, it's not.



ECIT: Nice avatar, Psion!

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I think you are blowing a few extra full round attacks per day WAY out of proportion for four reasons:

1) A fourth level Psychic Warrior can only do this 2 or 3 times per day (unless he has a Wisdom of 18 where he could do it 4 times per day).

2) He had to give up +1 BAB for ALL attacks in order to do this (compared to the same level Fighter) which also means that he is pushing back at which levels he can gat iterative attacks.

3) A fourth level Psychic Warrior cannot get iterative attacks until higher level. So, unless he is using the full round attack for a special feat or ability, the earliest this tactic can be used is 7th level.

I assume you've heard of Haste and Two Weapon Fighting. (Though haste is obviously the more optimal of the two).

4) Full Round Attack (if used for iterative attacks) results in the second attack being at -5 to hit, the third attack at -10 to hit, etc. Hence, a full round attack is effectively only worth a single extra attack if you have 3 or more of them, and worth less than that if you have 2.

The reality is far more complex than this. If you add haste attacks into the equation (as you should), the full round attack is already dealing twice as much damage on average as a single attack. However, the effect of -5 and -10 to hit is usually -25% and -50% to hit respectively. Thus, if one assumes that the primary attack has a 100% chance of hitting, the secondary and tertiary attacks together will usually deal 125% of the primary--in other words, the secondary attacks are worth 1 extra primary attack as soon as you have two of them and a haste attack is worth another attack right there. (And most fighters will have some way of getting a haste attack by level 12--either boots of speed, bracers of the swift strike, a party wizard, a weapon of speed, or something).

And, of course, the odds of hitting at all effect the equation. If a secondary attack hits on anything less than a 6, it's worth more than that. (And that's not an infrequent occurence for powerful and well supported melee characters). And, if the primary attack is extremely unlikely to hit, secondary attacks are also worth more than that. If the primary attack has a 75% chance to hit (probably a fair assumption) then the next two attacks (at 50% and 25% odds respectively) will deal exactly as much average damage per round as the first.

Effectively it is equivalent to a single Attack of Opportunity.

Except that you can take it on your own turn, it doesn't use up AoOs and you get to choose who you attack with the extra attacks in a full attack action. Then again, an ability that lets you take a nearly guaranteed attack of opportunity every round would be quite powerful too. (Rogues can get it at 10th level but not before).

So, in order to gain 2 to 3 additional set of attacks per day at -5, -10, -15, etc. (or 2 to 3 additional full round attacks per day if you use them for something special like Whirlwind), the Psychic Warrior/Fighter compared to the straight Fighter has to push back a level when he gets iterative attacks at all (i.e. 2 attacks at level 7 instead of level 6, 3 attacks at level 12 instead of 11, etc.).

And just a moment ago, you were saying that iterative attacks were insignificant. Which is it? Are they not worth a single attack of opportunity or is it a big deal to push them back one level? For my part, I think they're important enough that pushing them back a level hurts, but it's still only one level and the ability to get them at all in the first round of combat is well worth the trade.

Plus, he loses 1 BAB for all of his attacks. Plus, if he is using his PP for this, he is not using them for something else.

If he attempts to increase his PP by taking more levels of Psychic Warrior, he drops his BAB even more and pushes back iterative attacks even more levels.

This bit is a red herring and you should know it. There are two prestige classes in the Psi Handbook (illithid slayer and warmind) that increase PP without sacrificing BAB and if the DM allows improved caster level to count as improved manifester level, there are quite a number more in Complete Warrior, etc.

This is an EXTREMELY minor ability. Combat Reflexes is more uber than this and does not have the BAB downside. This is not unbalanced at all.

Funny, I've got characters with Combat Reflexes as well as my character with Hustle, and I can say without a doubt that, even for a reach weapon fighter, combat reflexes is nowhere near as useful. I get combat reflexes attacks once or twice every module I play with my reach weapon character. I get between four and twelve extra attacks per module with Hustle. Either your games are very very different from me or you're really stretching with this claim..

 

[KarinsDad]

The reality is far more complex than this. If you add haste attacks into the equation (as you should), the full round attack is already dealing twice as much damage on average as a single attack. However, the effect of -5 and -10 to hit is usually -25% and -50% to hit respectively. Thus, if one assumes that the primary attack has a 100% chance of hitting, the secondary and tertiary attacks together will usually deal 125% of the primary--in other words, the secondary attacks are worth 1 extra primary attack as soon as you have two of them and a haste attack is worth another attack right there. (And most fighters will have some way of getting a haste attack by level 12--either boots of speed, bracers of the swift strike, a party wizard, a weapon of speed, or something).

I agree with you that it does become much more potent if you add Haste and Prestige Classes like Warmind into the equation.

However, if you do that for the PsyWarrior/Fighter, you have to add a Prestige Class to the straight Fighter as well which again, changes the balance of power.