Is the Psion class balanced?

[Henry]

This thread has some pretty good back and forth discussion in it over Psionic Power. There have been many Psion/Sorcerer comparisons on these forums in the past two years.

In our games, I'm playing the only Psion, and so far I've "self-nerfed." I've recommended to the GM any place I believe looks too good, and so far the "+1 DC per power point" is one of them. There's a reason why 3.5 reduced the number of ways you can get a save DC boost, and this is a strong harm to that system. It's a reasonable alteration, one that fits given all the other places where it's +1 per 2 PP.

Other than that, there are many concerns over the balance of the astral constructs; My personal belief is that many of the summoned monsters are too weak for an effect that only lasts a few rounds and takes a full round to put out there, and Astral contruct goes in a better direction. However, I'll find this out soon enough.

 

[Nail]

Other than that, there are many concerns over the balance of the astral constructs; My personal belief is that many of the summoned monsters are too weak for an effect that only lasts a few rounds and takes a full round to put out there, and Astral contruct goes in a better direction. However, I'll find this out soon enough.

As you know, Henry, (I've been in many of those discussions) I agree that A-C is "over-powered".

However, I'm now of the opinion that nerfing the AC of the A-Cs would go a long way towards bringing the constructs back to reasonable levels. Zimbel did a good analysis on this (...and could make it even better if we compared just Summon Monster monsters to Astral Constructs). Constructs have lots and lots and lots of immunities to common (and uncommon) combat tactics (crits, posion, stunning, mind-affecting magic....) . Adding an extremely high AC on top of that is just adding insult to injury.

 

[XCorvis]

I have a psion in my campaign, and it's overpowered. I'm not allowing psionics in my next game.

I figured out the main reason psionics are broken - even if a sorcerer and a psion seem to have the same amount of power overall, the psion is more powerful because he can spend more PSPs at once. Basically, he can expend something like 25% of his resources in the first round of combat. The sorcerer can only expend about 10%, maybe less. (I'm pulling these numbers out of the air, but you get the idea.) With the Overchannel feat, it becomes more like 40%.

If you still like psionics, nerf Overchannel and stick to the level limit on augmenting powers.

 

[helium3]

I played a Psion who went unconscious once from level 2 to level 10 (when that campaign ended). I have never played or seen played a Wizard (or Sorcerer or Cleric or Fighter or any other class) who went unconcious once in 9 levels.

Granted, I was playing an Elan, but that is just an example of the systemic "bigger, badder, better" problems the XPH has.

Many if not most powers in it have some significant advantage or augmentation ability that the corresponding arcane spell does not.

Only a few powers are less powerful than their arcane equivalent (like Catfall compared to Featherfall).

I suspect the book was not very well playtested.

I have it on good authority (from someone that works at WOTC) that their books generally aren't playtested. At least, not in the general sense that people seem to assume. They basically don't have the time or money to spend on playtesting in detail which is pretty much the only way to catch a lot of the subtle problems with the system. So, the books get looked at and maybe a few games are played using them, but that's only good enough to catch the really obvious problems. Don't forget that they "outsource" their editing to free-lancers, or at least they used to back around the time that the complete divine came out.

 

[helium3]

My personal belief is that many of the summoned monsters are too weak for an effect that only lasts a few rounds and takes a full round to put out there, and Astral contruct goes in a better direction. However, I'll find this out soon enough.

I agree on this. We had a shaper in our group for quite a while, and the astral constructs never seemed overly powerful once the rest of us figured out that the player had neglected to tell us that manifesting them took an entire round. But yeah, compared to what you get from summon natures ally and summon monster, they're much better. I think it's interesting that in our game, the reason no one ever bothered to summon creatures (and subsequently why we didn't realize that casting took one round) is because we generally thought they were too weak to be of any use in combat.

 

[Scion]

I have run a good amount of things from every wotc book at one point or another.

Out of all of them, psionics so far is the best balanced overall, although a lot of it falls on the weaker side of the equation (concussion blast? gah..).

It has always seemed that people will forgive almost anything that phb classes do, even if they destroy the system, but if anything in the psionics realm even thinks about trying to play on a level field (read: balanced) they are suddenly beaten down and people shout from the moutain tops that they are overpowered.

Each class has strengths and weaknesses, if your campaign heavliy favors the strengths while ignoring weaknesses of a certain class or type of class then any class can seem overpowered. Often it seems campaigns are set up to really favor limited resource classes, and then people complain about the classes themselves instead of looking at the cause of the problem.

For psionics in particular people often overlook a few simple issues, but high amongst these is the manifestor cap. If you have a manifestor level of 10 you cannot spend more than 10pp on a given power. Cannot.

So, for Storyteller above, hope that 100+ level game is going well for you and for XCorvis other caster types actually have bigger and badder novas with less resources spent than psions can even dream of. Even when heavily abusing a power from a certain suppliment (non 3.5 psionics handbook) which can be read in a very odd way. But then we all know that some of the complete books have a few issues here and there, the same could be said of certain parts of the core.



Generally speaking, when a person is having a major balance problem it comes down to a few things:
1) they are missing a rule which prevents the abuse (see manifestor cap or nails complaint in the other thread that was posted earlier)
2) there is a campaign specific issue which is causing the actual problem (only having 1 encounter per day/week/whatever when there should always be the threat of 4 so that resources must be spent properly or death will likely occur or foes who seem completely incompetent anytime anything magical happens around them, especially at high levels)
3) an effect which is meant to be similar to the other magics and it is broken/overpowered there as well (shapechange anyone? Although the psionic version has a recurring exp cost, which is a much more hefty drawback than the other magics version)
4) confusion about wording (dispel psionics, if you read the whole thing then only one reading makes sense with all of the pieces yet people complain that the other reading is too powerful..but then since that reading doesnt make sense given the rest of the wording... ::shrugs:


There are of course some issues of power, and there are some editing problems here and there, but overall psionics is 'much' more balanced than magic in the core (bigger/better spells and many more abusive combos).

 

[KarinsDad]

I have run a good amount of things from every wotc book at one point or another.

Out of all of them, psionics so far is the best balanced overall, although a lot of it falls on the weaker side of the equation (concussion blast? gah..).

Uh huh. Psionics is more balanced than anything else.

It has always seemed that people will forgive almost anything that phb classes do, even if they destroy the system, but if anything in the psionics realm even thinks about trying to play on a level field (read: balanced) they are suddenly beaten down and people shout from the moutain tops that they are overpowered.

Your ability to discern the inner thought processes of other people is amazing.

And here all this time I thought Psions are imbalanced because they are imbalanced. I had no clue that I was actually prejudiced against psionics and was really subconsciously thinking that Psions are imbalanced because they are psionic in nature.

Each class has strengths and weaknesses, if your campaign heavliy favors the strengths while ignoring weaknesses of a certain class or type of class then any class can seem overpowered. Often it seems campaigns are set up to really favor limited resource classes, and then people complain about the classes themselves instead of looking at the cause of the problem.

So, many people who thinks that Psions are imbalanced are doing so because their campaign favors certain other classes?

Uh huh. None of us can think for ourselves now. We complain about Psions because of how our campaigns are set up. Right.

For psionics in particular people often overlook a few simple issues, but high amongst these is the manifestor cap. If you have a manifestor level of 10 you cannot spend more than 10pp on a given power. Cannot.

Guess you haven't read about Wild Surges or Overchanneling.

Generally speaking, when a person is having a major balance problem it comes down to a few things:
1) they are missing a rule which prevents the abuse (see manifestor cap or nails complaint in the other thread that was posted earlier)
2) there is a campaign specific issue which is causing the actual problem (only having 1 encounter per day/week/whatever when there should always be the threat of 4 so that resources must be spent properly or death will likely occur or foes who seem completely incompetent anytime anything magical happens around them, especially at high levels)
3) an effect which is meant to be similar to the other magics and it is broken/overpowered there as well (shapechange anyone? Although the psionic version has a recurring exp cost, which is a much more hefty drawback than the other magics version)
4) confusion about wording (dispel psionics, if you read the whole thing then only one reading makes sense with all of the pieces yet people complain that the other reading is too powerful..but then since that reading doesnt make sense given the rest of the wording... ::shrugs:

Generally speaking, when a person is having a major balance problem, it is because they are using their brains.

If Psions were truly balanced, then you'd be seeing a lot of experienced gamers and knowledgeable rules people here supporting your position.

But, you will not see that because many of the people here, especially the people who have actually had psions in their gaming sessions, are capable of understanding abuse when they see it.

There are of course some issues of power, and there are some editing problems here and there, but overall psionics is 'much' more balanced than magic in the core (bigger/better spells and many more abusive combos).

Oh, you mean like Burrowing Power through a Telekinetic Sphere were very few enemies can affect you?

Or, buffing yourself to have a higher AC by 5 or 10 or even more than any other PC in the party can do? My 10th level Psion could get her AC up into the high 30s if she wanted and she held off the BBEG monster by herself on multiple occasions while the rest of the PCs regrouped or ran away. Most enemies needed to roll a 20 to hit her.

Or getting the equivalent of an unlimited use Rod of Metamagic Energy Substitution (all energies, or 3 such rods with one energy type each, depending on how you look at it) with ALL of your Energy powers?

Or time powers at low to mid level as opposed to high level for everyone else?


Don't get me wrong. There are imbalances in core rules and the Complete books as well (e.g. Spell Channeling for Spellsword), but they are fewer and further between than in the XPH.

 

[Corsair]

A lot of it depends on campaign style. I played a psion in another player's campaign where we rarely had more than 1 encounter a day and was very powerful. That DM plays a psion in MY campaign which is currently rather dungeon-crawly and is quickly discovering that that unless he rations his PP, he'll run out pretty darn quick.

 

[Nifft]

Your ability to discern the inner thought processes of other people is amazing.

Isn't it obvious that he's Psionic?

If Psions were truly balanced, then you'd be seeing a lot of experienced gamers and knowledgeable rules people here supporting your position.

Hi! That's me. I play a bit, DM a lot, make up house rules a lot, and fix broken stuff a lot. Psionics isn't something that I've seen the need to fix.

I'm not in this forum much because the tone here can get very... catty. Don't like that. Allergic one might say.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Pielorinho]

I'm not in this forum much because the tone here can get very... catty. Don't like that. Allergic one might say.

Sorry to hear that, Nifft: I'd much rather keep out the cats.

So,
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