NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jackelope King" data-source="post: 2270560" data-attributes="member: 31454">Probably because psionics is extremely weak compared to divine magic.The combat ability is nothing when you can summon something with good spells. And compare a greater earth elemental to an 8th level astral construct: Construct has many fewer HP, but a higher AC. Construct has a slightly higher attack bonus, but the elemental has much higher damage. The construct is smaller, which is sometimes an advantage and sometimes a disadvantage. The construct has DR 15/magic while the elemental has the much better DR 10/-. The elemental has huge advantages from its feat list (allowing it to naturally plow through hordes of weaker foes with cleave/great cleave and giving it more tactical options with Improved bull rush and improved sunder. The construct can get his hands on some nice abilities from the high-level construction menu, but he only gets 1 choice. He'd be hard-pressed to be as durable as the elemental, and if he made this choice he would be weak compared to the earth elemental's earth glide mobility. If he went for instead for extra damage from something like rend or crowd control via concusion, he'll be weak in every other way.It is not irrelevant since we're talking about psions here, unless I missed a moving of the goal posts. And dimension door is the same in both the XPH and PHB. The only difference is that a psion can augment the power. Well guess what? An arcane caster can one-up the manifesters and quicken their dimension door. Metamagic feats are a huge advantage for arcane casters that rarely get mentioned.All an arcanist needs is a mirror, which can easily be carried in a portable hole or similar magic item. An arcanist can spend 1000 gp and be able to scry whenever he wants two levels later because he can get teleport without spending a feat. But at level 4 the poor guy will have to resort to using dang ol' rope trick if he wants to use the spell in the middle of an adventure. A psion can... oh wait! A psion never gets anything near the "save point" power that is rope trick or similar shelter spells. If he wants creature comforts he needs to either be a nomad or he needs to spend a feat to be able to teleport home.And these are entirely trumped by a first level arcane spell called protection from magic. Psions have to wait until level 7 spells with personal mind blank.Without mindblanking it still lacks the versatility of illusions. There are no powers which compare to the shadow spells in terms of versatility. There are no psion powers which are so multi-purpose as silent image. And true seeing at high levels is still rarer than mind blank because mind blank is an all-day, passive buff. True seeing is active, as you have to cast the spell whenever you want to use it, it only lasts a few minutes, and you have to know that you are dealing with illusions or else you just wasted the spell.The "silly" ones where arcanists use metamagic feats over a series of several encounters and more than double the damage potential of a psionic character. Because as I mentioned before, metapsionic feats are god-awful compared to metamagic feats, a huge advantage for arcane casters.And damage is always a cure away, which means that dealing enough of it is questionable at best. If a save-or-die spell succeeds, you've just won the encounter. If a damage spell deals half damage, you've forced the BBEG to spend resources healing himself. And yes, no-save powers are obviously the kings at high level, and by your own admission arcanists have the advantage here.And most of those good utility spells are discipline spells.Agreed.I'll call bull on this. I have never once in my entire time playing 3rd Edition seen a sorcerer not pick shadow evocation/conjuration spells. These spells give the sorcerer access (with just two spells) to two schools of magic. That is a versatility psions can never match.They have fewer spells known careof the shadow spells and their actual spell lists (I know you love to claim that augmentation means a power is more like fifty powers, but this just doesn't hold up in actual gameplay). Spontaneous quicken with feats just does not happen... psionic focus prevents this from being anything more than once per encounter. Schism is like fighting with a big gun in one hand and a pop gun in the other. No VSM is balanced because everyone knows when a psion manifests power everyone smells/hears/sees it. Quicker power output = quicker power burnout. "Free DC Scaling" only effects a small number of spells and (guess what?) you have to pay for it. I get the impression from your arguments that you have never once played a psion, because you seem to have some very, very  simplistic views on how it actually works in real gameplay. In a real game, a psion who goes for the gusto and blows out all his powers points quickly learns that this is a bad idea (from later encounters where he's weak or when he doesn't have the ability to manifest a helpful power later in a non-combat encounter). I have seen two of the "big bad psions" described in this thread. Within two sessions they had learned that blowing through power points in one encounter just doesn't work (and this was after sessions with a single combat encounter). Real games with psionics alongside traditional casters just don't have the problems you describe. In fact, high-level play with psions taking the place of traditional casters tends to make things more balanced since high-level spells tend to out-muscle high-level powers (by your own admission).Psions have damage on their side (a questionable as usual accusation, but one I will conceed is moot). Arcanists have everything else Creature comforts? Arcanists. Utility? Arcanists. Illusions? Arcanists. Necromancy? Big time arcanists. Enchantment, conjuration, and abjuration? Those are pretty close. Evocation? Fine. Let the psions have it.One out of eight schools of magic give psions an argueable strength in, and it is widely considered to be among the weakest schools.You're right. Having some strength in one weak field makes the class completely broken. How could I have thought otherwise?</blockquote>

Verification