For Nail - The Psion

[Thanee]

Here's a little picture I made a while ago, which might underline what two is saying.

It should be obvious enough, who's the Psion and who's the Sorcerer there.

The comparison is done with actual (reasonable) numbers (i.e. 16 starting caster ability) at 10th level.

The dots on the vertical axis are the spell/power levels (from bottom to top), weighed by spell level x caster level cap to figure in, that higher level spells/powers have generally more effect than lower level ones, caster/manifester level isn't everything. The horizontal axis represents number of spell slots/manifestations at the displayed level in a day.

I suppose it's self-explanatory enough.

Bye
Thanee

 

[DreamChaser]

in general, i've always found that when there is this intense a debate about an issue of balance, ultimately, the system is balanced.

My logic: if it were complelety overpowered, only one or two loony munchkins would say that it was and their reasoning would mostly be based upon how cool their characters are. if they were completely underpowered (like 3.0 psionics), then only one or two conservative DM loonies would be saying it was balanced, based upon their ability to challenge the psionic characters.

since people tend to go so back and forth on this, it must be too close to call. Ultimately, that means, that like anything in the game, your game determines how well psionics fit. I tend to run a combat light game. Psionics are no stronger or weaker than any class. I once played a halfling shaper who nearly defeated a bad guy who was designed (plotwise) to be undefeatable because of the abilities he was able to give his astral construct.

Ultimately, I think this debate ends up coming down to "do you like psionics." If you do, then you tend to view them as closer to balanced, if not, you tend not to.

Really, psionics are like the cleaving half-orc fighter with max strength, strength buffing items, and a awesome greatsword (who actually appeared in the last game I played in; the DM hated that character so much): he can take down a wyvern (or an army of goblins) in a single round at higher levels. Is the system broken? No. Are the abusable? Of course. Any game system is.

DC

 

[Henry]

I suppose it's self-explanatory enough.

To quote Mandy Patinkin, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

I'm not necessarily terrible on statistics, but every time you use that graph, with no legend, no values, and no X-Y labels, I still cannot make out what it's supposed to mean, even with your explanation. Maybe if you posted a table of the actual values used?

 

[two]

in general, i've always found that when there is this intense a debate about an issue of balance, ultimately, the system is balanced.

My logic: if it were complelety overpowered, only one or two loony munchkins would say that it was and their reasoning would mostly be based upon how cool their characters are. if they were completely underpowered (like 3.0 psionics), then only one or two conservative DM loonies would be saying it was balanced, based upon their ability to challenge the psionic characters.

since people tend to go so back and forth on this, it must be too close to call. Ultimately, that means, that like anything in the game, your game determines how well psionics fit. I tend to run a combat light game. Psionics are no stronger or weaker than any class. I once played a halfling shaper who nearly defeated a bad guy who was designed (plotwise) to be undefeatable because of the abilities he was able to give his astral construct.

Ultimately, I think this debate ends up coming down to "do you like psionics." If you do, then you tend to view them as closer to balanced, if not, you tend not to.

Really, psionics are like the cleaving half-orc fighter with max strength, strength buffing items, and a awesome greatsword (who actually appeared in the last game I played in; the DM hated that character so much): he can take down a wyvern (or an army of goblins) in a single round at higher levels. Is the system broken? No. Are the abusable? Of course. Any game system is.

DC

You are both right and wrong.

It is true that "your game determines how psionics fits." Really, that's it.

Lots of encounters per day = everything balances nicely.

1-2 encounters a day = psionics gets a big and unpropotional lift.

It's really not about "if you ilke psionics." I like it fine. I just don't want to have one style of magic (psionics) tell me, as a GM, what style of campaign I need to run (high encounter number per day).

It's also not "too close to call" within any given campaign. If you have 2 fights a day (at most) it's not too close to call -- psionic-users will look and feel more powerful than other classes. If you have 4 encounters per day, it's also not too close to call. Psionics will look and feel balanced. If you have a nice mix (some days 1 encounter, other days 5 encounters) it's probably balanced, because the PC's never know what to expect.

The rest of the time (to repeat, most campaigns I've seen/ played in), with 2 or less encounters per day as a rule, psionics is quite nasty. This is also not too close to call, it's very obvious to the players (and the GM) what's going.

So the real question is: is a class "balanced" if it requires one distinct type of campaign style? (note that this is quite a different question from "is something balanced within a given encounter/area battle/specific challenge").

I would say no, because there isn't any overt warning/instruction to the GM regarding this issue, such as "hey GM's, if you allow psionic PC's, make sure to keep the encounter-per-day ratio high". They are presented as "balanced" within any campaign/any setting. And that's just bunk. Even 1 encounter-a-day (on average) campaigns are not particularly rare -- these obivously give psions free reign to do their worst in as short a period as time as they can manage.

 

[azmodean]

It seems to me that there is some kind of consensus as to the fact that the psion requires a certain number of encounters per day to balance it with the rest of the classes. In a general sense this is true of many of the classes. A fighter can keep killing enemies sufficiently weaker than himself all day long, while a sorceror or wizard will run out of spell resources within a few minutes. The issue seems to be more extreme with the psion, but it is really the same issue. The balance of the entire game assumes a certain mix of challenges of varying difficulty. If you only fight undead for instance, a rogue is pretty much useless.
Personally, I think any class (such as Rogue) that requires a very specific campaign style (fighting living enemies) to be kept useful, is asking a bit much of the GM.
I really think the entire argument about the balance of Psions comes down to the issue of wether you think multiple encounters per day is resonable. There are many, many features of the system that push you into a particular style of play, this just happens to be one that many disagree with.

I have one caveat for this issue though. You do not have to have multiple encounters a day in order to convince your players to conserve their resources. You just have to have the threat of multiple encounters, which I believe is very resonable.

Concerning Thanee's diagram. You seem to be saying with this diagram that a sorceror clearly has less spell power than a psion of the same level. For a psion, raw manefester level does very little, but for an arcane caster however, it has a very large effect, which somewhat invalidates your point. I am aware that pure dice of damage does not represent all of the nuances of the spells available, but it is simply the most accessable number for comparason. Setting aside metamagic for now, the best either caster can do is 10d6 damage per spell/power, and the arcane caster can achieve that with a 3rd or higher level spell, while the psion must expend a 5th level power's worth of PSPs in order to achieve the same effect. Even then, the sorceror still has a selection of 2nd and 1st level spells left than can have a significant effect on combat, while the Psion has long since run out of abilities.

I have to agree with EyeontheMountain, the thing I do not like about psions is that they are not "team players". They can heal, but only themselves, they can buff, but only themselves. If you are running an "every man for himself" game it isn't as much of an issue, but in a team-oriented game it leaves the psion as an outsider.

Lastly, there are several individual powers that I have issues with from a balance point of view, but no more so than some of the arcane and divine spells. As a whole I find the Psion well-balanced with the rest of the group as long as they understand that it is never safe to blow all of their power on a single encounter.

 

[Thanee]

I'm not necessarily terrible on statistics, but every time you use that graph, with no legend, no values, and no X-Y labels, I still cannot make out what it's supposed to mean, even with your explanation. Maybe if you posted a table of the actual values used?

That's why I explained below, what the x/y is supposed to mean.

The red graph is a 10th-level sorcerer's spells per day. Every "step" of the graph represents one spell level from 5th down to 1st (effectively ignoring 0th level spells). The length of each such "step" is corresponding to the number of slots of that level.

The blue graph is a 10th-level psion's full-augmentation manifestations per day.

The dots along the vertical axis are at the following positions:
{5 (1st x 5 CL), 10 (2nd x 5 CL), 30 (3rd x 10 CL), 40 (4th x 10 CL), 50 (5th x 10 CL)}.

They represent the "value" or "effect" of one sorcerer spell (or psion power, the basic system with power level and manifester level is the same) of the given level at caster level 10th. Every full-augmentation manifestation is, obviously, valued as a 5th level power at manifester level 10th (this is, of course, just one of many possibilities how the psion could distribute the power points over the day... the most aggressive one, going full power all the time (there are numerous other options)).

The actual numbers are in the PHB and XPH (the example characters have a Cha/Int of 20 IIRC (16 base +2 lvl up +2 enhancement)). This is just meant to visualize them and bring them into relation with each other.

The point is, that if in a day you have a certain number of encounters, and for the sake of comparing what is possible, both use their best spells/powers available at all times, they start out about equal, but the psion quickly has an advantage (the blue area above the purple one), when the sorcerer's 5th level slots run out, and only after the psion has burnt all PP the sorcerer slowly catches up and eventually even gets ahead in terms of total effect generated in a given day.

This, however, requires, that there are enough situations to use all those spell slots, which - as experience shows - isn't the case in an average day at this level. And that is what two meant above.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

Concerning Thanee's diagram. You seem to be saying with this diagram that a sorceror clearly has less spell power than a psion of the same level.

No. They have about the same (blue area ~ red area), the sorcerer even has slightly more, I think.

What I'm saying is, that this total effect (or spell power) only comes to bear, if the sorcerer can expend all spell slots in a day. The psion has it very easy to bring the full power to bear.

And this results in the psion having a higher impact on an average day.

I explicitly did not use any specific examples there (which might make things a bit confusing, admittedly).

Setting aside metamagic for now, the best either caster can do is 10d6 damage per spell/power, and the arcane caster can achieve that with a 3rd or higher level spell, while the psion must expend a 5th level power's worth of PSPs in order to achieve the same effect.

See, this is exactly, why I did not use damage dice or any other specific spells/powers for the comparison. A 5th level spell/power dealing 10d6 is not equal to a 3rd level spell/power dealing 10d6. It's - depening on the situation, as usual, of course - much higher!

Take for example (sorry for going non-core, but it's one staple spell and one that compares well to it to show this): Fireball and Firebrand (from Magic of Faerûn). Both deal 10d6 fire damage in an area, but the 5th level spell's area is almost freely shapeable, thereby allowing much, much more targets than the 3rd level spell, and thus a much higher effect.

Doesn't always come to bear, but just to get the general idea, why I only compare spell level x caster level here and no specific effects. It's hard to compare a Dominate Person to a Fireshield after all.

Even then, the sorceror still has a selection of 2nd and 1st level spells left than can have a significant effect on combat, while the Psion has long since run out of abilities.

Of course! But this "effect" has by then already been generated by the psion, that is the blue area above the purple area. The sorcerer is just trying to keep up afterwards.

It's like on a long-distance run, if the psion has 3 laps done by the time, the sorcerer has only 2. He's already in the goal, while the sorcerer is still running to complete the 3rd lap.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Taren Seeker]

OK take a Psion 10, Sorc 10 both with 20 in the primary stat. You only have 1 encounter in a day, and say it lasts 4 rounds, then the Psion is going to have 77 power points left after using max augmentations. But then, the sorcereror could use his 4 5th level spell slots and still have 6 4th level slots left, as well as all of his lower level slots. That's IF the Sorceror wants to use his highest level slots: free scaling doesn't force him to do that.

Basically it seems like neither class has been seriously depleted by 1 encounter a day. I don't see a problem there.

 

[azmodean]

Short answer, I just think the scale of effects is different, The psion does "sprint" better (definitely not trying to argue against that one) but I think the sorceror keeps up pretty well, and in terms of total effect the sorceror will get much more done if he actually uses all of his spell slots (however unlikely this may be). In summary, in the average case I think they are approximately equal, with the psion having better peak output, but the sorceror having more total effect available in a day.

Just for clarity, my understanding is that you are saying they both have the same total effect output in a day, but the psion can unload his effects faster.

Overall, I think the Psionic rules need a bit more polishing, but are overall workable.

 

[Nail]

Aaack! I missed this thread start-up! Sorry, Caeleddin. I'll get to this tomorrow, after completing my lecture prep. for Chem. It's a fun/good topic. (Mixed up my identifiers there, I think. "How Psionics is out of balance" is the good topic....although Chemistry is a good one too. )