Sorren, your numbers are unfortunately incorrect. You're using less-than-average damage numbers (3 instead of 3.5 for a d6 roll) which skews the results. For example:
But a 10-pt Empowered energy ball does 8d6+8 * 1.5 damage, the average of which is 36 * 1.5 = 54 pts of cold or fire damage.
And a 10th lvl caster Empowered fireball does 10d6 * 1.5 damage, the average of which is 35 * 1.5 = 52.5 pts of fire damage.
You'll note that the psion is doing more damage in this case, not less, although it's not a significant amount.
Also, there's the matter of saving throws. Average damage doesn't mean much on its own, the real benchmark is what's the average damage against a specific target? The psion's DCs will be the same or higher, which means a slightly greater amount of expected damage to his/her targets.
And you're putting area effect powers (energy ball, fireball) on the same damage footing as single-target powers (like scorching ray).
For the psion's "leftover" pts in your example, he's better off using energy missile instead of energy ray (and will probably have it if he knows energy ball, as both are kineticist-only powers). For 3 pts, energy ray requires a touch attack and does 3d6+3 to one target. For the same pts, energy missile does 3d6+3 damage to five targets, no miss chance although there is a save for half.
But a 10-pt Empowered energy ball does 8d6+8 * 1.5 damage, the average of which is 36 * 1.5 = 54 pts of cold or fire damage.
And a 10th lvl caster Empowered fireball does 10d6 * 1.5 damage, the average of which is 35 * 1.5 = 52.5 pts of fire damage.
You'll note that the psion is doing more damage in this case, not less, although it's not a significant amount.
Also, there's the matter of saving throws. Average damage doesn't mean much on its own, the real benchmark is what's the average damage against a specific target? The psion's DCs will be the same or higher, which means a slightly greater amount of expected damage to his/her targets.
And you're putting area effect powers (energy ball, fireball) on the same damage footing as single-target powers (like scorching ray).
For the psion's "leftover" pts in your example, he's better off using energy missile instead of energy ray (and will probably have it if he knows energy ball, as both are kineticist-only powers). For 3 pts, energy ray requires a touch attack and does 3d6+3 to one target. For the same pts, energy missile does 3d6+3 damage to five targets, no miss chance although there is a save for half.
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