How do Psions compare to arcane casters?

[Felon]

It's a good thing you said surely, or someone might have debated you...

In all fairness, Thanee's got a nice long screed there, supported with several well-articulated arguements.

So does anyone care to actually rebutt Thanee's claims? Are psions (and their kind) at the top of the damage pyramid? Do they receive all the benefits of a sorcerer with virtually none of the downsides?

 

[MerricB]

In all fairness, Thanee's got a nice long screed there, supported with several well-articulated arguements.

So does anyone care to actually rebutt Thanee's claims? Are psions (and their kind) at the top of the damage pyramid? Do they receive all the benefits of a sorcerer with virtually none of the downsides?

Hmm. I'm of the opinion that the psion really has it tough maintaining high area damage. Let's point out to begin with that Energy Ball, the fireball equivalent, is a 4th level power, and only available to the kineticist.

At 10th level, the kineticist can cast 11 of them per day (113 PP, based on 20 Int), each dealing 10d6+10 damage with a DC of 20. Not bad, eh?

Meanwhile, the 10th level Sorcerer has 4 fifth level spells, 6 fourth level spells and 7 third level spells. Fireball is 10d6 damage with a DC of 18, but the Sorcerer may cast four empowered fireballs per day for (effectively) 15d6 damage each.

Where things get interesting is once the kineticist starts using feats like Overchannel - 3d8 damage to self for a temporary +2 gain to manifester level. So, 12d6+12 damage and a DC of 21. Mind you, this costs 12 PP, so only nine uses of this per day. And the psion better get a healer!

One of the most important features about playing a sorcerer is the proper use of metamagic feats, especially Empower Spell. I think it's something that many miss, causing them to miss the true potential of the sorcerer. With the addition of the variant sorcerer from PHB2, there's no doubt that the sorcerer is exceptional as a damaging caster.

Cheers!

 

[Thanee]

Odd... I still see it used at that level. It does a decent amount of damage for a negligible investment, much more than a psion gets out of 1 pp.

It's still alright, as I said. It's not great, but still useful. But why is it used? Because the wizard does have no other choice but to use the 1st-level slots for 1st-level spells! That's the #1 reason why these spells are still used at this level.

And 1 PP cannot do the same thing for sure, that's why I said 3-5. 3 PP can do something of the same magnitude roughly.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

Hmm. I'm of the opinion that the psion really has it tough maintaining high area damage.

Just counting total damage is completely meaningless. You need to count the total effect, and there are many factors. I will list some below, which are only related to the specific example.

Let's point out to begin with that Energy Ball, the fireball equivalent, is a 4th level power, and only available to the kineticist.

Yep, the choice of powers is limited, as said above. With the extra feats its not so much of a problem, though, to get some from other disciplines (which probably most Psions want to).

Meanwhile, the 10th level Sorcerer has 4 fifth level spells, 6 fourth level spells and 7 third level spells. Fireball is 10d6 damage with a DC of 18, but the Sorcerer may cast four empowered fireballs per day for (effectively) 15d6 damage each.

10d6+10 is about 13d6 already. With +2 to the DC, that's probably better than 15d6 already. With no extra feat investment (not counting the bonus feats the Psion has over the Sorcerer), no higher casting time (or other cost to remove that a few times per day), freely choosable energy type, a dozen powers of 3rd+ base level to choose from (not just 6, where only 1 is of the highest level, not 4-8 (the 8 is including some others with full level-advancing augmentation)) to manifest instead of 'fireball'.

The psion can use empower, too, btw. Then we also have some serious feat investment and casting time issues (getting Focus back) as well. Damage is then 12d6+12 effectively, or 15-16d6, they still get to change energy type and all the other goodies.

They can even do that while grappled and silenced. And dressed in full plate armor.

One of the most important features about playing a sorcerer is the proper use of metamagic feats, especially Empower Spell. I think it's something that many miss, causing them to miss the true potential of the sorcerer. With the addition of the variant sorcerer from PHB2, there's no doubt that the sorcerer is exceptional as a damaging caster.

If you use 'exceptional' for the Sorcerer there already... what's the Warmage then? Or the Psion?

How much benefit do you think it is to cast/manifest something else instead of Fireball?
How much benefit is it to have a lot more choice than just Fireball here?

(with the variant you mean the metamagic without casting time increase variant, right?)

Bye
Thanee

 

[satori01]

As a point of comparison....
Magisters from AE can pull off actions similiar to a Psion by using Spell Weaving and the Modify Spell feat. The Magister's Sorcerous Blast is also 4 element friendly. Frankly the ability to trade in low level spell slots to feed higher level powers is something all class should have. The Druid in my campaign almost always has 1st level slots left over. The Magister never felt over powered to me, and a Magister is an awesome Buffer and Healer.

I agree with Thanee and other posters that many of the powers of a Psion are funkily balanced, which is to say quite probably out of wack. The focused nature of Psions tends to mitagate alot of the problems, however clever players using Expanded Knowledge can game the system quite well.

Kineticists are very good nukers, but w/o resorting to liberal use of the Expanded Knowledge feat, I think they have less battefield control applications than a Warmage.

Seers are cool in theory,(to me at least), and have more intresting Divinations powers than Diviners have spells, but again they miss out on alot of the cool things other Psions get, let alone things like Wish etc.

The Telepathy school, which I think is the classic Psion suffers the same problems that all Mind Affecting powers have, namely Undead and Mind Blank.

I have not seen alot of Egoists as people that find those powers appealing often play Psy Warriors, which most people agree are pretty balanced, on par with Self buffing Clerics in combat terms.

Do Not Even Get Me Started on Astral Constructs...those are not really balanced, and every Psion can use them with Expanded Knowledge.

As an Aside, does anyone else feel like their is no reason not to take a PrC class after 10th level for the Ardent of Complete Psionic. I like the class, but after awhile, the class features are a bit sparse, how many Mantles does one need?

 

[BryonD]

In all fairness, Thanee's got a nice long screed there, supported with several well-articulated arguements.

So does anyone care to actually rebutt Thanee's claims? Are psions (and their kind) at the top of the damage pyramid? Do they receive all the benefits of a sorcerer with virtually none of the downsides?

It gets tiresome going around and around with the same argument.

My experience with numerous NPCs and PCs has established beyond any doubt that the psion is a completely viable class that has times when it shines very brightly and times when it comes up short but is nicely balanced overall. There are certainly some specific powers that need to be assessed. but I don't judge wizards by the most broken spell out there either.

I could start banging my head against the wall in this thread as well.
But the theory of serious problem has been countered in numerous prior threads and completely disproven in actual play. That is good enough for me.

 

[Psion]

In all fairness, Thanee's got a nice long screed there, supported with several well-articulated arguements.

So does anyone care to actually rebutt Thanee's claims?

Many of his Thanee's arguments have been addressed on the rules forum; most of those that I agreed with him on were errata'd in the complete psion. That said, having been part of said arguments, I can say that I know from experience, this is the kind of discussion that will lead into a protracted debate with excel spreadsheet captures and arguing around non-shared assumptions, and I currently don't have the time or patience. So it's with hesitation I step in here, with the admonition to consider the arguments that I and other have put forth on the rules forum if I get too busy with GenCon preps to get back to this thread.

Are psions (and their kind) at the top of the damage pyramid? Do they receive all the benefits of a sorcerer with virtually none of the downsides?

I see a sorcerer as sort of a poor cousin of the Wizard. The sorcerer's spell selection is much more harshly than that of a specialist (save that you still have a bit more room to cherry pick... you just don't have a very big basket), and the specialist wizard's spells per day are almost as good as a sorcerer's, and a wizard can compensate for preparation to a large degree with spell scrolls. So if you think the sorcerer is "definitive" in its power, you may find a Psion exceeds your standards. That said, tweaks by both Wizards and Third party publishers attempt to jazz up the sorcerer, so this feeling that the sorcerer is somewhat substandard exists even outside of context of a psionics comparison.

Even so, there are a few things you have to keep in mind when it comes to evaluating the power of a psion against a spellcaster.

First, spells scale for free; powers require an investment to scale up. If magic missile were a power, it would cost a psion 5 pp, the equivalent of a 3rd level spell slot. Above Thanee argues that the need for restraint is not a drawback. That sort of sidesteps the point. If there is a fight that does not require the full support of your spellcaster, just activities like harrying spellcasters or helping remove nuissances with guaranteed damage, spells like magic missile are a trivial investment for a mid level spellcasters, where a psion has to not only manage that power, but it costs a bigger fraction of its power.

Second, with respect to the use of metamagic versus metapsionics, due to the fact that powers don't scale for free, you can't enhance a psionic power without taking a hit to your augmentation.

Finally, remember that a central balancing assumption in the DMG is 4 encounters between rest periods. An analysis on the rules forum shows that 2 or 3 encounters is normally sufficient to begin to take a deep bite into the psion's power point pool. If you don't follow the 4 encounters guideline, and never spring unexpected encounters on players, then I think you will find that the up-front damage capability of the Psion to be telling. But you follow the guideline on the average, and spring unexpected encounters on the players, then you should be fine.

 

[Thanee]

As has also been said numberous times already, but it's certainly fair to mention, that many issues also depend a lot on the playing style (part of that is the number of encounters per day issue already outlined).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Henry]

Well, you gotta admit, even with the spreadsheet captures, Thanee's presentation is more entertaining than an annual budget report.

Thanee's actually changed my mind on a few issues of the Psion -- for instance, a Psion could gain new powers at the same levels as a Sorcerer (every even level, instead of every odd) and still remain very useful. I'll also say that, as a player it's great, but as a GM it just doesn't set well with me to have the energy styles changeable at the drop of a hat with no feat use, and that Arcane casters who change energy types don't gain the same kinds of advantages. Here's a place for 4th Edition where a VERY SIMPLIFIED damage type system a la Spycraft would be useful (e.g. fire is different from acid, which is different from sonic, which is different from electricity, etc.)

But speaking from experience of having two psions in a previous game, and Playing a 5th through 11th level Psion in a previous game, the psion is not useless, nor is he a show-stealer from the other classes if the errata'ed powers are used. However, he is a bit high over the power curve, and I'd probably edit the power level gain levels, and maybe tie every energy type past one freely selected one to a feat - sort of an "elemental attunement."

 

[Thanee]

Well, you gotta admit, even with the spreadsheet captures, ...

Just as a sidenote... I never made a spreadsheet or a capture of one in this context.

I did make one graphic (with a paint program) to visualize the psionic power 'curve' at the highest PP output level and the total effect generated by it (and a comparable sorcerer's spell slots).

Bye
Thanee