Heavy Artillery: Psion vs. Wizard

[Lord Pendragon]

Glad all that work wasn't for nothing. As has been mentioned above, it isn't a perfect analysis, but I think it puts to rest the "PSIONICS R BROKN!!!11!!" rant.

Not for me. Not to say I'm convinced psionics are broken, but your post certainly didn't convince me otherwise.

Why? Because a comparison that relies on 35 rounds of combat is nonsensical. IME, on average you can expect 3-4 combats a day, at 4 rounds or less each. That means 11-16 rounds of combat or so. And in that window, as your numbers showed, the psion is the clear leader. It's only after you factor in the theoretical rounds 17-35 that the sorcerer catches up. In terms of balance, only the practical matters to me. The theoretical proves nothing.

What this thread would really benefit from would be a comparison similar to the one Scion and Elder-Basilisk gave us in the PsyWar vs. Fighter thread. Let each person who believes one guy is stronger do a full write up, then throw the contestants against 3 specific encounters and see how they do. Rate them separately for Versatility, Damage Dealing, etc. That thread taught me a heck of a lot about the two classes involved.

 

[Spatula]

But you can't roll 3.5, so I went for 3.

But you're not rolling a single die, you're rolling multiple d6's.

If you roll 2d6, chances are the total will be 7. That's the average and the most likely result. Not coincidentally, 7 = 3.5 * 2.

The more dice you roll, the closer to the average the total will tend to be.

All good points. I didn't take saving throws and multiple targets into consideration. I purposefully went only for the numbers.

Even taking those things into account, does anyone honestly think the sorcerer's 24 more rounds of spellcasting goodness isn't important?

I don't disagree with your conclusion that the sorcerer is better when there are many encounters each day and the psion is better if there are few.

 

[Sorren]

Not for me. Not to say I'm convinced psionics are broken, but your post certainly didn't convince me otherwise.

Why? Because a comparison that relies on 35 rounds of combat is nonsensical.

Of course it is!

IME, on average you can expect 3-4 combats a day, at 4 rounds or less each. That means 11-16 rounds of combat or so. And in that window, as your numbers showed, the psion is the clear leader. It's only after you factor in the theoretical rounds 17-35 that the sorcerer catches up. In terms of balance, only the practical matters to me. The theoretical proves nothing.

Go back and reread my post.

35 rounds doesn't represent 1 fight, but 35 rounds of combat without resting. It could be one HUGE fight, or 7 of realistic length. The fact that neither can get their spells/powers back without 8 hours of rest means it doesn't matter.

11 rounds is realistic for a long battle. With Empower Spell, the sorcerer can deal nearly as much damage as the psion.

5 Rounds of Combat?
Using my example, the psion will deal roughly 200 pts of damage.
The sorcerer with Empower Spell will deal roughly 207.

Does that mean the sorcerer is broken?

 

[Droid101]

I don't disagree with your conclusion that the sorcerer is better when there are many encounters each day and the psion is better if there are few.

It might be hard to even convince me of this. The psion will be able to deal more damage in that first encounter, but the sorcerer will haste his party, break the enchantment of the cleric who go turned to stone, cast fly on everyone, etc. His spells may go further in winning the encounter than damage alone.

I think all the arguments come down to this: what style of play the DM runs. One boss fight and rest every day means most likely, the psion will outshine everyone else (unless they are immune to spells/psionics entirely). Many encounters in a day, or encounters that take 10 rounds or more, and unless carefully planned, the psion will run out of steam. A little later, the sorcerer will too.

If you're going to use psionics you're going to use them. I don't see them as overpowered at all. And I have run a campaign from 1st to 21st level (see: Story hour). No problems. No PC psions, but plenty of enemy ones (of appropriate challenge level) and the PCs don't even blink.

So, again, it boils down to DM style. Argh! This argument is so circular that you could roll it down a hill.

 

[Psion]

I dunno - it's pretty ambiguous if they WEREN'T talking about doing the same thing to stones and people.

It's one of two things:
1) Overpowered as written, or
2) They didn't mean stones in the last paragraph.

Either way, the difference for the purposes of my campaign is going to be negligible. In either case, Psions won't be using stones as virtual spellbooks IMC.

Even without using power stones as sources, I've still never seen two sorcerers able to share abilities like this - it's an awful boost to a party to have two manifesters in some sort of gestalt hive-mind.

I find the "stones" conclusion much more startling. The hive-mind thing is an interesting flavor bit, but it doesn't scream "overpowered" to me like the stones thing would. I mean it requires a friendly (or unconscious) psionic creature, and in that case, that creature could normally use the ability anyways. There might be a few cases that it is useful, but it doesn't seem as "gameable". For example, it is limited to powers on your list. To have the biggest potential share-age, you would have to have a character of the same class as a cohort or fellow party member and that would be somewhat redundant.

 

[Sorren]

But you're not rolling a single die, you're rolling multiple d6's.

If you roll 2d6, chances are the total will be 7. That's the average and the most likely result. Not coincidentally, 7 = 3.5 * 2.

The more dice you roll, the closer to the average the total will tend to be.

You're right, but I doubt it'd make much difference. You're welcome to re-run the numbers, but I don't think it's worth the effort to me.

I'm tired...

 

[Spatula]

35 rounds doesn't represent 1 fight, but 35 rounds of combat without resting. It could be one HUGE fight, or 7 of realistic length. The fact that neither can get their spells/powers back without 8 hours of rest means it doesn't matter.

You misunderstand. He's saying that in a typical day, the PCs are only likely to face around 16 rounds of combat total. So the sorcerer's ability to out-damage the psion over the next 19 rounds will never actually come into play (in his games, at least).

With Empower Spell, the sorcerer can deal nearly as much damage as the psion.

5 Rounds of Combat?
Using my example, the psion will deal roughly 200 pts of damage.
The sorcerer with Empower Spell will deal roughly 207.

Does that mean the sorcerer is broken?

Using your numbers, the psion with empower does 210 over 5 rounds, more than the sorcerer. But your numbers are flawed, the real numbers are 270 for the psion w/empower, and 240 for the sorcerer w/empower (assuming every save is failed and every ranged touch hits), which is a more substantive gulf between the two.

 

[Majere]

This is still going huh? I guess I'll chime in with my two cents. Or a dime. This is going to be long…

Hate to say this but..
Your damage calculations are wrong.

You cant just state average damages without including saves.
The psion powers have higer DC's, on average you are less likely to save for half. They can also pick elements that avoid resistances or abliities like evaion. They can also pick the save to give themselves even better damage potential.

Im afraid a true comparrisson of damage would need to include these factor, infact I may do this myself when I have the time

Majere

 

[Sorren]

Using your numbers, the psion with empower does 210 over 5 rounds, more than the sorcerer. But your numbers are flawed, the real numbers are 270 for the psion w/empower, and 240 for the sorcerer w/empower (assuming every save is failed and every ranged touch hits), which is a more substantive gulf between the two.

That also assumes that the psion is able to maintain his focus from round to round which of course requires an additional feat or two.

And even then, it's hardly broken.

You misunderstand. He's saying that in a typical day, the PCs are only likely to face around 16 rounds of combat total. So the sorcerer's ability to out-damage the psion over the next 19 rounds will never actually come into play (in his games, at least).

Again we come around to it being a matter of gaming style. And even at 16 rounds, that's 5 rounds of the psion doing nothing.

The point is, people are saying that the psion is broken because it can supposedly do a lot more damage than the sorcerer in the short term. The fact is, the psion can do only slightly more damage, and the sorcerer more than makes up for these few points with the ability to keep going far longer.

Assuming a 16 round adventuring day, let's say the psion does 30-40 points more damage than the sorcerer in the first 11 rounds. The sorcerer will more than make up for that during the 5 rounds that the psion is sitting on the sidelines.

 

[Scion]

Say that the numbers are more or less correct, eventually someone may fix them completely but for now we'll roll with it.

Over the course of 16 combat rounds in an entire day then the two classes are roughly equal for damage output. But, the psion is done.

for the other X number of 'rounds' of 'challenges' throughout the day the sorcerer still has a bunch of spells to fix the problem, whatever it may be.

So, for the comparison above it focused on damage, that is fine. Once the psion is out (assuming this happens at the same time the last baddy is gone) then whatever the sorc has left over above and beyond the psion can then be used as utility over the whole day.

Damage? roughly equal, but then the sorc has a huge amount of other things he can still do.