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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Thanee" data-source="post: 1745176" data-attributes="member: 478">*sigh*    When will people realize, that you simply cannot compare magic and psionics this way.    Magic Missile is a good spell, sure. One of the most potent 1st level spell even. At 9th level it is at the height of its potency. But how do things look at, say, 15th level? Is Magic Missile still so godly then? No, it's no more than a minor nuisance. Might be good in some specific circumstances, but in 95% of the cases, it's simply not very useful anymore. That is the power of scaling. It is limited. It has caps. It is great up to some point, but after that it falls down quickly. Powers do not have these limits. The low level slots will - at some point - never be highly useful anymore, and their usefulness will degrade more and more as the level advances (there are very, very few exceptions to this, like Divine Favor). Still nice and not something to throw away, but their real power is gone by then. Still the spellcaster is stuck with them and cannot use them in any other way. Unlike the psion, who can freely use the power points for higher level powers. That is the flexibility of psionics. And this is why psionics have a higher cost for a compareable effect.    One thing is very important when making such comparisons:    A fully scaled 1st level spell is not the equivalent of an unaugmented 1st level power.    Repeat.    A fully scaled 1st level spell is not the equivalent of an unaugmented 1st level power.    It is the equivalent of an augmented power of the same/similar (+/- 1) spell/power level and augmented to the corresponding manifester level (equal to the caster level). And yes, it does have a higher cost, and this cost is to compensate for the fact, that you can freely distribute your whole power reserve as you wish over the course of the day.    Scaling and augmentation are the two underlying systems. Both are different.      Scaling has slot limits and caps, but scales for free, making lower level slots useful to a degree.  Augmentation has a higher cost, since it does not scale for free, but a lot more flexibility in application and no caps.     At this point, things are about equal. Both systems have their inherent advantages and weaknesses and for each there are situation where one is better or the other.    However, this would require that spells and powers are interchangeable power-wise. That you can simply pick any power (or spell) of any level, remove augmentation, add scaling and put it into the other system and it should then work out fine. This is simply not the case. The Energy line especially is an extreme example of how some powers completely break out of the boundaries. Powers like Energy Missile are ridiculously overpowered. How can this power compare to any 2nd level evocation spell, please? Even Scorching Ray, a highly potent spell for sure, is almost a joke in comparison.    Also, this would require, that the classes are about equal, which is certainly not the case, unless you compare the psion with the wizard (bonus feats, spell/power level progression), which obviously doesn't work, since the wizard does not have spontaneous casting (which is more than just a minor advantage), which the psion gets on top of everything else, if you compare this class to the wizard. The sorcerer? One has to be completely unreasonable to not see the huge discrepancy between psion and sorcerer (and the sorcerer, while the class lacks something, certainly is not that bad <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />).    Sorry, but for all the love for the flavor of the psionics, which I can actually see how someone would like it, this simply isn't equal, not even close.    Bye  Thanee</blockquote>

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