For Nail - The Psion

[Diirk]

Have you actually played the encumbrance rules in your game? Or do you blow them off?

I keep most stuff on my pack horse. In a pinch tho, survival can replace the trail rations, Create Water the waterskin and a blanket instead of a bedroll.

A character with a 10 Str carrying a belt pouch, a bedroll, a single days trail rations, a waterskin, the Mithral Chain Shirt, the Mithral Buckler, and a Greatsword (which in DND is carrying next to nothing) is carrying 37.5 pounds and is in a medium encumbrance category by 4.5 pounds.

You can do a few things to bring this weight down, including replacing the greatsword (which you aren't proficient with, anyway) with a shortspear. Or a quarterstaff if for some reason your 10 str psion really needs a two handed weapon.

It is extremely easy to get into a Medium Encumbrance category in DND, even if you have a reasonable Strength. My psion has a Strength of 14, but even at 58 pounds for a light load, using the Mithral Chain Shirt and Mithral Buckler is over 25% of what she can carry and drops the rest of her allowable equipment to 43 pounds.

If you get desperate there's always a weightless bag for your requirements. However even without, I think most people could make do with 43 pounds if they so desired.

And for Mithral Armor/Shield to be viable for any character, let alone a psion, that character needs to allocate a lot of funds towards that in order to have a fair chance of not getting hit in combat. Funds which can be better used to enhance other abilities or shore up other weaknesses.

2000gp for the initial armour/shield (+5 ac), then +2000 for 2 more ac, +6000 for another 2, etc. Its certainly a tradeoff, it depends on if you have powers you'd rather take than inertial armour/forcescreen or not. If you have the powers to spend I can see why many characters would prefer Inertial Armour to mithril chain; heck it even scales, something mage armour doesn't do. Force Screen on the other hand only lasts 1min/level. Meaning you either have to know that there's a fight about to start and cast it slightly in advance (something that doesn't happen in my games too often), or you have to cast it during combat. And frankly I'd much rather spend my time in combat casting offensive spells. Each round you spend buffing yourself is a round you aren't weakening the enemy. I'd rather have the majority of my defenses up all the time.

Plus for any character class that does not have any armor/shield feats, a Mithral Chain Shirt is the best armor that character can get without sacrificing to hit. Once you get to Mithral Scalemail or heavier armor, a character without those feats will be taking a armor check penalty to hit.

A great many psionicist builds won't care about penalties to hit; its not exactly a class designed to wade into combat, and you don't even have to take many powers with ranged touch attacks.

 

[KarinsDad]

Well, given that you can't seem to hold a discussion with even a minimum of politeness, I'll just remove myself from the discussion -- [gone]

Well, your first response to me denigrated my first post by saying how my example was unusual and not helpful and questioning how viable it was without illustrating a better solution. Instead, you gave a very poor counter example that psions without armor feats should waste their money on low powered armor.

Your second response to me called me snippy.

Your third response also called me snippy although the only thing I did was repeat your own snippy words back at you.

And your fourth response here is calling me impolite.

Again, pot calling the kettle black two? Look in the mirror sport before pointing the finger at others. You want to pretend that you didn't start this tete a tete in the first place by calling me snippy, you just go right ahead and pretend. But, this repeatedly acting like you are a victim when you pulled out your knife first is lame.

On the other hand, I'll drop it if you drop it.

 

[KarinsDad]

I keep most stuff on my pack horse. In a pinch tho, survival can replace the trail rations, Create Water the waterskin and a blanket instead of a bedroll.

Difficult to take your pack horse indoors.

You can do a few things to bring this weight down, including replacing the greatsword (which you aren't proficient with, anyway) with a shortspear. Or a quarterstaff if for some reason your 10 str psion really needs a two handed weapon.

Actually, she is proficient with the Greatsword. She took the proficiency at level one. However, she could not afford a Greatsword until level two.

Plus again, my psion has a 14 Str, not a 10 Str.

But why should she fight with an inferior one handed weapon when she can use Force Screen for her shield bonus and fight with a Greatsword?

If you get desperate there's always a weightless bag for your requirements. However even without, I think most people could make do with 43 pounds if they so desired.

Actually, the party just bought a Heward's Handy Haversack and my psion is carrying it. Even with most of her equipment in it, she is STILL carrying around 30 pounds. 15 more pounds for armor and shield would put her in medium encumbrance if she picks up anything weighing 9 pounds or more.

I suspect that most psions have strength lower than 14 and it would be even worse for them.

2000gp for the initial armour/shield (+5 ac), then +2000 for 2 more ac, +6000 for another 2, etc. Its certainly a tradeoff, it depends on if you have powers you'd rather take than inertial armour/forcescreen or not. If you have the powers to spend I can see why many characters would prefer Inertial Armour to mithril chain; heck it even scales, something mage armour doesn't do. Force Screen on the other hand only lasts 1min/level. Meaning you either have to know that there's a fight about to start and cast it slightly in advance (something that doesn't happen in my games too often), or you have to cast it during combat. And frankly I'd much rather spend my time in combat casting offensive spells. Each round you spend buffing yourself is a round you aren't weakening the enemy. I'd rather have the majority of my defenses up all the time.

I typically only spend round one buffing her (if even then) since Inertial Armor and Thicken Skin tend to be up before we get into combat (not always, but often). Or, another good tactic is to buff while moving towards the enemy.

Plus, you can "not weaken the enemy" by rolling a 2 or your to hit. Just because you make an offensive attempt does not mean that you will be succesful.

A great many psionicist builds won't care about penalties to hit; its not exactly a class designed to wade into combat, and you don't even have to take many powers with ranged touch attacks.

It's an excellent class to wade into combat, especially if you are an Egoist. My character does it all of the time.

For example, my psion did Metamorphosis as a Troll and held off a Vrock all by herself at 7th level while the rest of the PCs took out the two dozen other lesser demons attacking us. Even when it tried to Teleport and fight other PCs instead, all I had to do was go over and engage it some more while the rest of the PCs regrouped.


Also, I disagree with you on the ranged touch attack issue. Most psionicist builds will minimally rely on some ranged touch attacks merely because so many psionic offensive powers are designed that way and have a higher chance of success if used. And those types of attacks do not succeed if they do not hit. I don't know of any character (Wizard, Sorcerer, or Psion) with a +1/2 BAB that wants a penalty to hit if he uses touch attacks or ranged touch attacks. Doing that is counter productive.

 

[Scion]

Wow.. some of this talk is just weird.

I'd like to get a few things off of my chest

First of all, the number of encounters a day is set for the whole system and needs to be enforced in one way or another otherwise everything falls down. Yes, everything.

Note though, you dont have to have them like that every day, you dont even have to make them all combat, all you have to do is have the threat of it being possible and have it happen now and then.

Short days happen, long days happen, but everyone should plan on each day potentially being a long day.

Anything that expends any amount of resources is some sort of encounter. Enough smaller ones equals a bigger one. If everytime your party comes across a trap they have to use up a spell or an item or the party rogue gets blasted on accident or something else this takes up a bit of the parties resources. Every day that matters (yes, some days there may be zero things going on, like in town resting) each little thing takes out a little bit of what the party can do. This all matters and is what the system is based on.

If you are playing in a game that only ever has one or two challenges on game days that matter and it doesnt disrupt things likely there is something else going on because that type of thing tends to heavily favor certain builds over others. Just like having nothing but long day heavily favors other builds. Using the recomended parts of the system tends to balance each of the builds the best.

Second, thanees picture graph is pretty much always used in a way that misrepresents any actual campaign. It only really matters in an arena system with no buff time and only one thing to do a day. On anything else, and even sometimes in the arena, it falls flat to show anything useful.

There is a lot more time out of combat than in combat in a given day. Given that many of the spells and powers have had their durations destroyed in 3.5 this means that a lot of those lower level slots must be used each challenge to help with various aspects. This means that the spellcaster can use a bunch of lower slots to get things done and still have all of that upper tier blasting power. However, each and every power manifested cuts into the top of the psions powers per day.

This is all well and good, it is part of the tradeoff, but it also makes the psion pretty weak in a lot of ways. They are strong in others however, tradeoffs.

Useing lower level spells to fix various problems, shore up various weaknesses, or just blow off at random for fun barely touches the true ability of the casters. The same cannot be truthfully said for the psion. Each time he puts up a power of any sort for any reason it cuts into his strengths.

Given the extremely short duration of most things in 3.5 this is even more prominent.

Putting up even basic defenses for a fight can seriously impare how much a psion can do for the day, especially if they want to augment any of those defenses. Going for maximum defense and maximum offense means that the psion will last about 1 battle at best, and he wont really be all that much better than any other caster. Better yes, but not overwhelmingly better.


As for nails post though..

Here are my concerns, born out in play (using 3.5e):

(1)Psions can manifest too many high (or highest) level powers.
(2)In order to challenge the psion, you must have 2-4 combats per day (and one of those encounters had better include someone with a Dispel Magic/Psionics).
(3)Psionic powers, psionic monsters, and psionic items require fundamental changes to other campaign magic-users.
(4)Psions get many feats for free: Eschew Components, Silent Spell, Still Spell, Heighten Spell, Empower Spell, and Energy Substitution (all energy types).
(5)Many Psion powers are either out-of-balance or have no non-psionic effective counters.

(1) completely subjective and not useful in any fashion. Especially given the tradeoff that useing more high level powers means having little to no low level powers for other tasks. Saying that they have 'too many' just doesnt say anything, one could say the same thing about sorcs, wizards, or even fighters and it would mean just as much.

(2) In order to make the system work for any class made so far this has to be done. Not doing so causes lots of other problems. The problem here is not the psion, it is with people not playing the system properly and creating a problem themselves. Dispel magic is no more required for psions than any other class. Replace psion in your sentence with nearly any other class and the same situation happens. Fighter is about the only one immune to this, but not for every fighter build, and they are generally the best at 'lots' of combats in a day anyway, they are on the other side of the coin, too many fights and only the fighter will be in any useful shape. The last bit of course changes based on so many factors it is insane, overall balance concerns favor having about 4 encounters of an appropriate level in a given game day that matters. Throw that away and throw away all of the rule books.

(3) Completely false. Given that the default is transparency there is zero difference. Sometimes you get to check through the psionics book for equipment instead of the dmg, but the same could be said for so many different books it is silly. Many of the items in the psionics book were made overly weak for this reason. Sad when even after going for the weaker side of balanced people still bash them.

(4) Again completely false, these things simply do not apply. Each system works under different base principles for what these represent. Personally I find the psionics system overall more balanced in this case. Too many sacred cows being held over for no reason on the magic side. Hence why there are so many things that get rid of them. Just because there are a series of incredibly weak and nearly worthless feats that should be done in a better way for casters does not mean that psionics is overpowered or broken or even wrong. The magic system should be fixed, not break everything else.

(5) This is an odd statement given how many different spells are broken in the current system and yet people still use magic. There are many, many more troublesome spells than troublesome powers. As for no 'non-psionic counters', what does that even mean? Most things on both sides have some sort of parallel, even if they arent perfect. If anything the psionic side comes out worse nearly every time: paying exp each time instead of gp for a focus once and more limited in scope (dispel psionics cannot counterspell nor remove curses). What powers cannot be defended against useing magic? After that, tell me how many spells cannot be defended against useing psionics. Then, how many of each cannot be defended against back and forth through the divine chain.


The 3.5 psionics book has a few problems of course, but they are minor compared with the spellcasting problems currently. Psionics is the most balanced version of magic yet. Hopefully each will continue to be improved in the future!


As for the armor issue, some psions will wear armor, others wont. Trading one resource for another, that is all. Depending on what your final goal is one will be better than the other. I had a psion decked out in fullplate and weilding a large shield. He was well into medium load and had a massive penalty, but that wasnt the point, he was just the tincan who walked around pretending he was some incredibly inept knight who sometimes had things happen to help him out and win. It was fun, although perhaps not fully optimized

Just for future reference, I think everyone on this thread should read these:

Myth 1
Myth 2

It will take several days, but it should help show a few different view points. While I dont agree with everything on there it is at least a place to start.

Have a good one all

 

[Diirk]

Difficult to take your pack horse indoors.

Thats ok, most of your equipment you won't need on hand most of the time anyway.

Actually, she is proficient with the Greatsword. She took the proficiency at level one. However, she could not afford a Greatsword until level two.

Plus again, my psion has a 14 Str, not a 10 Str.

But why should she fight with an inferior one handed weapon when she can use Force Screen for her shield bonus and fight with a Greatsword?

The 10 str came from your example psion who was encumbered with the necessities yet was still carrying a greatsword for some reason. I was talking generalities, not your specific psion who obviously did take the feat (which I'd suggest would not be the norm) and does have a higher strength. Obviously armour isn't the best choice for all situations, but it is a valid choice that has a number of advantages for some character designs.

Actually, the party just bought a Heward's Handy Haversack and my psion is carrying it. Even with most of her equipment in it, she is STILL carrying around 30 pounds. 15 more pounds for armor and shield would put her in medium encumbrance if she picks up anything weighing 9 pounds or more.

I suspect that most psions have strength lower than 14 and it would be even worse for them.

I suppose it depends on how much you feel you need to carry around...

I typically only spend round one buffing her (if even then) since Inertial Armor and Thicken Skin tend to be up before we get into combat (not always, but often). Or, another good tactic is to buff while moving towards the enemy.

Plus, you can "not weaken the enemy" by rolling a 2 or your to hit. Just because you make an offensive attempt does not mean that you will be succesful.

I prefer not to spend any rounds buffing if I can help it. Inertial Armour and the like are fine at 1hr/level and admittedly given that you can augment it as opposed to say mage armour makes it compare favourably to armour, its just things like force screen I tend to dislike. While you say that casting it as you move towards the enemy is a good tactic, I find it to be a much better tactic to keep more of a distance and cast offensive spells instead.

And why would I be rolling a 2 for my 'to hit' on powers such as energy burst, inflict pain?

It's an excellent class to wade into combat, especially if you are an Egoist. My character does it all of the time.

For example, my psion did Metamorphosis as a Troll and held off a Vrock all by herself at 7th level while the rest of the PCs took out the two dozen other lesser demons attacking us. Even when it tried to Teleport and fight other PCs instead, all I had to do was go over and engage it some more while the rest of the PCs regrouped.

Also, I disagree with you on the ranged touch attack issue. Most psionicist builds will minimally rely on some ranged touch attacks merely because so many psionic offensive powers are designed that way and have a higher chance of success if used. And those types of attacks do not succeed if they do not hit. I don't know of any character (Wizard, Sorcerer, or Psion) with a +1/2 BAB that wants a penalty to hit if he uses touch attacks or ranged touch attacks. Doing that is counter productive.

What I'm hearing is 'my character does it this way so there's no other good way to do it'. Some situations people will find it better to pick armour rather than sacrifice powers known to inertial armour/force screen. Other situations people will find it better to stick with the powers. I don't really see how you can disagree with that, given the number of possible builds out there.

 

[KarinsDad]

And why would I be rolling a 2 for my 'to hit' on powers such as energy burst, inflict pain?

The point is that offensive powers, just like melee and missile attacks, are not always successful.

You can waste 7 PP with an Energy Burst just as readily as wasting a sword swing. Spell resistance or immunity to that energy type or even just resistance to that energy type, a bad dice roll, and a made saving throw could result in virtually no effect.

Ditto for Inflict Pain.

Offense is not always better than defense. In fact, it is often the opposite.

What I'm hearing is 'my character does it this way so there's no other good way to do it'. Some situations people will find it better to pick armour rather than sacrifice powers known to inertial armour/force screen. Other situations people will find it better to stick with the powers. I don't really see how you can disagree with that, given the number of possible builds out there.

Wearing armor and/or being encumbered without the armor feats limits the success of a psion.

Such a character will have penalties for:

1) offensive touch powers
2) offensive ranged touch powers
3) normal missile attacks
4) normal melee attacks
5) movement
6) physical skills

unless he wears extremely light armor in which case with D4 hit points and low AC, he will have limited survival chances.


There are five main differences between Psions and Wizards/Sorcerers:

1) Psions can manifest more "highest augmented powers" per day.

2) Psionic powers can be used in some situations that are adverse to arcane spell casting (e.g. areas of Silence, in grapples, etc.).

3) Nearly 80% of psionic powers have a range of Close or less. Psions are close range specialists. Arcane spells average a longer range.

4) Arcane spells auto-scale, psionic powers require more PP to scale.

5) Psions have virtually no "minimize me from being targeted at all" powers. For example, Invisibility, Greater Invisibility or Mirror Images. Psions are almost always visible and targetable on the field.


A lot of people focus on #1 and #2 and totally forget about #3, #4, and #5. Yes, psions can be very powerful: for very short periods of time. But, they are vulnerable all of the time in combat.

And that is why it is critical for a successful psion who regularly gets into combat to have some form of martial capability, be that melee or missiles. Psions only have D4 hit points and sooner or later, they will die if they cannot still fight when low on PP while the other PCs are still relatively fresh.

And that is precisely why the "armor without the armor feats" scenario is so lousy. Such a build hampers a psion's already limited (+1/2 BAB) melee/missile capability even more by either giving him a penalty to hit or limiting him to very light armor.

Armor with the armor feats (i.e. either taking the feats directly or taking a class or prestige class that gives them) is ok, but still not great. It allows for expansion of armor without limiting a psion's combat capability.

Without the armor feats, it's not a matter of it being 'my character does it this way so there's no other good way to do it'. It's a matter of survival.


If you ever play a Psion, you will discover this. You cannot play a Psion like a Wizard or Sorcerer and just blast away at max PP every round. The 8th level Kineticist Psion with 18 Int, armor and no armor feats who does 9 fully augmented Energy powers in a day for an average of 36 points each will suddenly realize that the 8th level blaster Sorcerer with 18 Cha might only get 4 of his highest (i.e. 4th) level spells, but that's still 10 Fireball spells with an average of 28 points each. The Kineticist did 16% more damage in 9 rounds than the Sorcerer did in 10 rounds, but the Kineticist is totally out of PP whereas the Sorcerer still has 7 first level spells and 7 second level spells to go.

In this example, the Psion gets 9 max PP powers whereas the Sorcerer gets 24 spells (not counting zeroth level spells). That's more than 2 1/2 times as many active rounds of combat.

The Psion will die if he does this. Hence, he has to conserve. And if he is conserving, he isn't using heavy PP every round. That is the opposite of conserving.

The only alternative to using PP is to use a weapon. If your psion does not use one, he will either stand to the side being worthless, or he will blow through his PP in one or two combats each day and be worthless in combats #3 onwards.

Either way, he will die sooner or later with such a strategy unless the DM always limits it to a max of 2 combats per day.

 

[Diirk]

The point is that offensive powers, just like melee and missile attacks, are not always successful.

You can waste 7 PP with an Energy Burst just as readily as wasting a sword swing. Spell resistance or immunity to that energy type or even just resistance to that energy type, a bad dice roll, and a made saving throw could result in virtually no effect.

Here's a good idea, lets do nothing but cast defensive powers in combat because 'my offensive ones might not work'. Guess what? Defensive powers won't always work either. Sometimes you'll get hit anyway, sometimes the enemy will simply not focus on you. Either way, no matter what you do in combat, there's a chance that some of your actions will turn out ineffective. That doesn't mean it wasn't worth a shot, tho.


As to the rest of what you posted... well, I don't agree with you, and clearly alot of other people don't either, because I see psions played with armour all the time.

I can't believe you just posted 'your psion will die if you don't play him like I play mine'. Talk about a closed mind, heh.

 

[DreamChaser]

okay. I again state my definition of balance.

this much debate means it is too close to call. people stick to their own sides and refuse to see/acknowledge the other side.

and this much pettiness means that there are a bunch of immature people who can't agree to disagree. it is just as immature to refuse to drop a point being "argued" by an immature person as it is to be immature. part of maturity is choosing your battles.

but such is the way of things on a D&D board I guess.

DC

(who is well aware that some of that pettiness will now be directed toward him for daring to point it out to all parties involved; feel free.)

 

[the Jester]

One thing I haven't noticed anyone address in this discussion is the fact that psions can tweak their blasting powers for best effect.

A sorcerer who knows fireball and encounters a fire elemental is screwed; a psion just sets phasers on cold.

I think this is a significant advantage.

 

[Thanee]

Myth 1
Myth 2

It will take several days, but it should help show a few different view points. While I dont agree with everything on there it is at least a place to start.

Yeah, I also wouldn't agree with that (speaking of the initial post of those threads only, I really don't want to read through dozens of pages of that silliness, if there are some actually reasonable posts, maybe somone can link to them?).

The format of "Myth: This is broken" and then "Answer: No it's not, because you can fix it by changing it this way" is quite convincing, indeed... LOL

Then adding completely silly arguments, like "sorcerers have more spells known than psions", makes it good for a laugh but little else. Sure, if you also think Acid Splash is about the same power level as Meteor Storm, than you can probably say it's like that.

And not to forget, that being able to choose between four energy types on the fly instead of just one is not better, because there are monsters out there, which resist each of them, so the obvious conclusion is, that you always choose the wrong one. Yep, then it's not an advantage at all. I can see that.

Oh, and did you know, that Energy Missile's advantage of selectively targeting up to 5 targets for full damage each is balanced by the targets having to be within 15 ft.? No, really! I guess it balances the +1 DC per +1 PP on the fly as well.

Another nice one is, that fighters are pretty powerful with 20 combat encounters in a day (obviously), and because of that, it's balanced that psions are overpowered with 2 combat encounters a day. Because, yeah, 20 and 2 is about equally likely.

But thanks for the laugh, been a while since I saw them.

Bye
Thanee