Hey! Anyone else think Mindscapes is overgunned?

[Luthiel]

I've been reading through the new Mindscapes suppliment for psionic characters by Malhavoc and man do I find this thing to be way out of balance. Has anyone else had the opportunity to look through this thing? What are your opinions?

As an example, the visceral surge feat lets you cower someone whom you've struck in melee. The poor fool gets no save. The next round, whether you hit him or not he must make a will save or be cowered again. The number of times you can use this power in conjunction with an attack is equal to your BAB.

-L

 

[Nightfall]

My opinion on Mindscapes is that it's a good suppliment.

 

[Luthiel]

My opinion on Mindscapes is that it's a good suppliment.

I like the mindscapes idea, but the rest seems out of balance with other parts of the D&D system to me.

I respect your opinion though, what do you like about it?

-L

 

[rkanodia]

I think Mindscapes is largely a pretty good supplement. The main 'mindscape' concept is pretty darn cool, and a much more fun way of doing psionic combat. The Prestige Classes are interesting and relatively balanced. Just watch your step with some of those feats and I think you'll be fine (stunning fist, no saving throw, chance of extended duration? what were they thinking?)

 

[MrFilthyIke]

what were they thinking?

I think they were "Thinking" the feat seemed neat and very
cinematic, or impressive, or new and cool. But all it takes
is the first person to say "Hey, if I take Feats X, Y, and Z...
I can now walk through combat unharmed!"

That's were excessive playtesting often helps, but that is
often times hard to get, or too time consuming I suppose.

 

[BSF]

Hmm, I haven't actually had any balance problems using Mindscapes. Maybe I just haven't seen enough of the material get used?

On specifics, the Mindscape is a better mechanic for psionic combat. The PrC's are largely interesting. Actually, I think I have used more PrC's from Mindscapes than from any other single supplement except the 3.0 DMG.

Looking at Visceral Surge, I can see some problems. But, it's not like the PC's are picking up fighter bonus feats and pumping into that at really low levels. However, having a reserve PP requirement might not be a bad idea. The biggest abuse on this one is probably a Fighter that picks up 1 level of Psychic Warrior, or Psion, so they can reach the Psionic requirement. The other issue would be that the feat doesn't explicitly state the type of affect. Is it a Fear affect? Is it a Psionic Affect? As the DM, I would argue it is both, and thus it cannot affect anything that is not affected by Psionics, or by Fear. Alternatively, the attacker can only affect creatures with lower HD. So, you can't use a True Strike, or a Deep Impact to make that ancient red dragon cower. This particular feat is probably in need of some heavy playtesting, but I don't see that as being an indicator that the entire supplement is broken.

 

[Nightfall]

Mostly I liked the psionic monsters. Plus the stuff on the Dark Plea was interesting too.