Is the Psion class balanced?

[ruleslawyer]

Well, now. Familiar is a sor/wiz class feature, and burning hands is a sor/wiz spell. That means that most people able to cast the spell (I am assuming here that the domain users, wand-wielders, and spell storing ring wearers comprise fewer than 50%) will know exactly what a familiar is and what the ramifications of its demise are. Seems more like good tactics than DM rancor to me.

That said, as to the main topic of this discussion, I still think the wizard has it in spades over the psion for several reasons:

1) Melee? Who cares about melee? Neither of these characters should be getting in a stand-up fight. Same goes for grappling. If you actually have to test your ability to respond to a grapple, and you're not at a level where you can have a stilled dimension door prepped, you deserve to die. Nor is the psion, with his puny d4 hit die, going to fare all that much better than the wizard in the grip of a barbarian or monk.

2) While D&D does reward specialization over versatility, there is a downward limit to how much you can restrict your options and still stay with the power curve. The wizard's ability to learn every arcane spell in the books counts for a LOT. The psion can pull off what he knows (typically inertial armor, metamorphosis, schism, and a few blasting powers) pretty darn well. However, the restriction on the number of powers he can use is pretty hurtful. In KDs example regarding the psion, for instance, those four AC-boosting powers represent a quarter of what the 7th-level psion knows in total. The wizard is still left with numerous other options. Let's say, for example, that there arises a situation in which flying, invisible scouting, summoning an extra ally, setting up a flanking condition, buffing another party member, etc etc (the typical range of situations that suggest themselves in any of my games, at least) come up. What then?

3) Finally, wizards may run out of spells somewhat at lower levels, but the problem, IMX (and I've done a LOT of high-level 3e gaming) doesn't really arise at high levels. Wizards can sling out spells in every combat and have room for more. I don't see the psion's more efficient use of resources to engage in melee (!) as really an advantage.

 

[KarinsDad]

If the alternative were getting burnt to a crisp by a burning hands spell? Yeah, actually, I would.

I work at a humane society, and I do see plenty of people with small pets that they carry around in little knapsacks attached to their backs like babies, or even inside their clothes. One woman I know has a pet snake that often travels around with her, coiled around her forearm inside her shirt.

It's reasonable for familiars to enjoy such conditions, I think. The familiar has a magical connection to the wizard, and is there to enjoy the wizard's company, not to endanger its life.

And when V's familiar appeared for the first time? It was in the second strip .

And how many strips after that until it appeared again?

And, you also made my point for me here. You see the animals in those conditions. Hence, they are visible. Hence, they do not have full cover. Granted, the Familiar can hide quickly when the fireworks start, but a suprise round Evard's Black Tentacles should target the Familiar just like it targets every other creature in the area.

I suspect that many DMs forget this.

 

[Scion]

What nonproficiency? She had Martial Weapon Greatsword Proficiency since the beginning which she dropped near the end of 8th level with Psychic Reformation.

Since it wasnt listed or mentioned as far as I can see it sounds like a valid point to make.

Plus, you had to burn 400 exp to get it out later and what it does early on is grant you an extra d6 damage on your attacks. It can be a nice feat for certain builds, not so much for others.

If I had problems hitting, I would up my "to hit" by Entangling the foe.

Which costs another power known, an action, a pp (or more) and anyone could benefit from it plus anyone else could do a similar effect with a nonmagical item. And, while unlikely, it might miss.

It is a great option, but not the end-all, be-all.

And, the Bless/Prayer spells of the party Cleric helped as well. Or if I need more umph, I would flank, regardless of AoOs against my fairly high AC. Another tactic I used was charge/flank for +4.

Great, again tactics that anyone can use for the same or better benefit. Not something that helps the psion specifically.

It's easier to hit than you think. Armchair analysis doesn't always match with real game experiences.

I think that your guy was behind in to hit bonuses than the tanks even after all is said and done and is doing less damage to boot. Which is backed up by the numbers.

The only way it wasnt happening that way is if the dice were with you while against them, which does happen on occasion.

However, luck has no bearing in a balance discussion. After all, as an extreme example, if you had a commoner in the party but he managed to crit every single swing that doesnt make the commoner overpowered.

It's not that hard to 5 foot step to put up a Vigor in many circumstances.

Nope, it isnt. Of course there are many situations as well where it is impossible.

But, the real cost here is the action. During the time you are putting up vigor you arent doing anything to directly impair your enemy. It can be a good delaying tactic given proper circumstances, but usually it means that you just arent a threat for that round.

If the foes are letting the psion get away with this without using any of the anticaster tactics (such as using terrain, basic spells, manuvering to prevent 5' steps, etc) and we ignore the benefit of simply having a higher hd to begin with (divine types usually) or really doing much else other than 'me smash!' no matter what you do.

I wasnt in your game so again I cannot comment on all of these things, but enough of them are off kilter enough to be question marks about what exactly was going on in the game.

If I was fighting monsters or fighters, AC boost. If I was fighting spell casters, Precognitive Defense (more for the add to saving throws). Fort Save = 1 PP for Resistance. Reflex Save = 1 PP for Resistance or Intellect Fortress. Will Save = 1 PP for Resistance.

Again spending rounds buffing while the enemies get to do whatever they like, although it is helpful, but still not anything others cannot do to some degree (sometimes more, sometimes less).

Again however you are going through pp rather quickly. Personally though, I'd rather have the halflings constant +1 that I dont need pp or an action for or the dwarves +2 even if it is a little more limited in scope.

Note that alter self is available to caster types very early on and grants significant boosts which the psion cannot match.

Trust me. The DM threw everything he could at me when it became obvious to an NPC that I was a threat.

Given that it seems like there were some basic tactics that went unused that even low int foes shouldnt taken advantage of this seems odd.

But again, I was not there. If I had been I would be able to give more specific examples of pros and cons.

Yup. He broke the rules. Course, he set up the auto-ambush scenario against the PC in the first place. And, it didn't really change the outcome of the fight though. 2 or 3 more hit points from a dagger. Not exactly a "dead duck". Even with Sneak Attack (which I do not remember her having or not), the outcome would not have changed much.

So we have a low level 'assassin' who got an auto-ambush (which only means that they surprised you) and tried using a dagger with some poison (many people could've made the fort save a lot easier than the psion) and then proceeded to be ineffective after that by trying to drown someone for minutes?

it is an extreme circumstance though. Some characters would have a better chance than others.

Which means that apparently some are upset that a character couldnt be instakilled by an inept assassin. Ahh well...

Who said the PCs eyes were closed?

Ahh.. but the 'facing down' is ok I guess. Which amounts to the same thing either way, it is just a double potential whammy.

Generally though I make people roll a chance as to whether or not the eyes are closed after being paralyzed.. I believe the last one was 20% chance, but the rules seem to be a bit silent in such an area.

But, even without the eyes being closed being unable to turn your head should make targetting problematic at best. To do otherwise would destroy suspension of disbelief.

Again though, maybe there is a rule I missed about being paralyzed and being able to see in all directions still. It seems like a pretty simple step to take.

Surprise Round: Attack

Round One: Full Round Action to pull opponent 5 feet into tub of water, paralyzed character cannot resist, so is held under by weight of attacker automatically

Round Two: Attempt Coup De Grace

Round Three: Attempt Coup De Grace

repeat

I still dont understand the under water thing. If they were going to stab you anyway why even bother with the water until after you were already dead? Attack the first round, then coup de grace on the second could've finished the battle right there, before there was a chance of counterattack.

Who said she had sneak attack damage? By Assassin, I meant someone trying to kill me.

Who said she held me underwater face down?

All assumptions on your part. Course, it was over a year ago, so I do not remember all of the details either, but I do remember being able to counterattack. Hence, all of your speculations here are null and void.

Given your serious lack of information I would have to say that my assumptions were perfectly logical.

You were attacked by an incredibly inept assassin who doesnt have a useful weapon nor a useful attack and seems to pick their target at random. Also, thinking by assassin you meant assassin seems like a valid thought.

I suppose it would have to be low enough level where this sort of thing is still a threat and other caster types wont have a few different escape plans anyway.

There just isnt much information here, and some of it seems contradictory. Which means it seems rather useless as a comparison point so far.

That is the problem. We have a build and that I can comment on, but then we have the campaign which there is little information and it seems, from the outside, that there are tons of things which 'could' have been done but were not. Since they were not then X looks overpowered, or because Y was not taken into account Z looks underpowered, that sort of thing.


The build you posted looks nice. He has some options, but it isnt out of line with any other caster. He is better at some things and worse at others.

As an elan he would have some good surviveability, but at the cost of being useful. It is one of the few races that can turn class abilities into racial uses, which is both a benefit and a detriment.

A big hit comes in that you are aware of? you can survive it! Of course, it might drain you to the point of only being able to swing your weapon the rest of the day. Which I believe is why you got the weapon and feats, plans to help when the pp run low and to help conserve pp.

But then other races have different abilities. The halflings +2 dex and/or +1 size bonus to ac might have prevented the hit altogether, or some earlier one which made this not as bad.

Some tradeoffs are harder to see than others. The elan has an impressive looking ability, but the halflings is much more subtle.

Simple. Put up 7 PP Inertial Armor and 1 to 7 PP Thicken Skin ahead of time (depending on whether it looks like a location for one battle or many).

Thicken skin does have a decent duration, although also a small benefit.

In a dungeon type encounter searching for traps and stealthing can sometimes even make its duration insufficient and outdoors there can be hours of traveling between.

Although really I think that 10min/level should be the minimum duration for buffs. If their effect is too strong for that duration then reduce the effect.

But, if you can assume that the duration will be sufficient then might as well put up the big boy at 7 points.

Light battles then become:

1) Put up Force Screen for 1 PP.
2) Wade into battle.
3) Rinse and repeat.

Heavy battles then become:

1) Put up Force Screen for 1 or more PP (depending on what the opposition looks like)
2) Wade into battle.
3) Use Entangling Ectoplasm for 1 or 3 PP.
4) Sometimes, Metamorphis or Dimension Door or Empowered Energy Bolt or other power.

So where in this is the vigor? Or the intellect fortress? Resilience? Resistance? Or even the good damage dealing?

Your ac will be decent at 26 or so (+7 armor, +3 thicken skin, +2 dex, +4 shield), your attack bonus will be a little low and average damage wont be that great (even if you hit 100% of the time and refocused 100% of the time the average damage is still less than a decent fighter type build).

But, it is good conservation and it will allow going all day and having emergency abilities to help keep one alive or other combat abilities.

Sounds like a great start on a character really. It has use, can pull out some emergency reserves, and is useful to the party.

But, the idea is to conserve your PP for when you really need them. We have players in our game who go through spells like there is no tomorrow. Later in the day, they are out of the good ones. Psions always have good ones left over as long as they have a reasonable pool of PP leftover.

People keep focusing on "running out of PP". If you conserve and use low PP powers and only use the high PP powers when it is really critical, you can fight in many battles in a day. Running out of PP is a problem at lower levels. But, once you get to mid-level, a smart player can fight in a lot of combats per day.

Which is the same for the psion or the other casters, although it tends to be even easier for divine types given the innate advantages.

Psions pp pool is very limited. Other caster types either have a good amount more effective pp or a much better selection. Tradeoffs.

And, this is not a Psion who went out of her way to craft psionic items to augment her PP.

Since the magic versions of such items are 'much' better I dont think that is terribly relevent

Pearls of power are pretty nice, especially with magics free scaling ability. Cognizance crystals need to be recharged by someone with pp.. ew.

The difference, and what makes this Psion overpowered, is that the Wizard either casts spells or he uses a Light Crossbow. Hence, a Wizard has to go through his spells in every combat and most rounds in every combat. Or, he is not helping. This Psion did not. She could wade in and fight instead of using PP every round. Hence, she had PP to spare when really needed.

The psion and the wizard have the same base hd, the same BAB, the same saves, and can get many equivalent results from buffing.

Your guy spent a feat on using a big sword, the wizard could do the same.

Your guy gets some pretty effective feats for making the weapon more dangerous later on that have no equivalent, although as shown they are far from overpowered, but the wizard could use alterself instead of spending the feat on a weapon, turn into a trog. As a trog he gets 3 natural weapons, +6 natural armor, and a mean disposition.

So, at low level this would be a form that would last for a whole battle and give a pretty hefty AC along with a tough attack combo. Which would save spells for other times. Plus alterself has a huge amount of versitility in a many areas.

Now, you can equate this to a Cleric, but again, the Cleric can only Spontaneously cast Cure spells. The Psion can Spontaneously manifest (and spontaneously metapsionic) ALL of her powers. The Cleric has more hit points. The Cleric tends to have better armor which can be offset at lower levels. But, I'd put this character up against a Cleric any day. Especially once she did the PrC into the Slayer class. Her BAB increases by one every level now. She gets 4+Int skill points per level. She can wear any armor. She gets D8 hit points.

Of course the cleric has access to more total spells at level 1 than a 20th level psion has access to number of powers.

The cleric has armor profs, better weapon profs, domains for extra abilities, turn undead which works under a different resource meter, 2 steps up in hd, and way more total equivalent pp per day.

So, before the slayer prc, and even after in many ways, the cleric is simply better.


It sounds like almost everything you have said basically comes down to the slayer prc being overpowered. Which I have said is the case from the beginning.

without that you would need your extra feat still, you would have a lower bab, lesser hd, less skill points, and the rest.

There are many horribly broken prcs out there for other types of classes, do they make their classes overpowered? This prc isnt even on that level of brokeness and yet for some reason it apparently makes the whole psion class overpowered.. interesting.

If the BBEG Fighter is whaling on her, she does full point Vigors every round or two

So the character doesnt do anything almost half of the time for the actual fight? Time to get a more useful character who will actually help in the fight ;/

 

[Scion]

well that was way too long

I'll try for more brevity in the future in this thread. Of course, likely I will fail.


Anyway though, limited powers known and a lesser total pp and lack of scaling in a few areas are the tradeoffs for the benefits that psions get.

If you treat them like any other limited resource character there wont be any extra problem that they do not already create in the game.

some of the abilities are different, but in general other magic types have more abuseable abilities.

Generally the prcs of caster types are incredibly good, whereas most psionic ones are full of flavor but lacking in power.

Psions do have some unique options, but then so does every well made character.


Given that there was one example given so far, and with it there wasnt any outclassing except with enough prep time and expending enough resources (which is the same for every caster type) how does one go about showing the balance that might be there? What if the psion 'can' do something better than anyone else, does that make him unbalanced? Why?

Such a difficult discussion ;/

 

[Psion]

So, are you saying it is an invalid tactic for NPCs to target PC Familiars?

Are you saying it is an invalid tactic for PCs to target NPC Familiars?

What exactly are you saying? What knowledge does the NPCs not have?

Not enough info. Which NPC? A given NPC may know that it's a good idea to nail some stupid toad instead of targeting a mage flinging spells at you. But it's certainly not a given.

 

[Scion]

Not enough info. Which NPC? A given NPC may know that it's a good idea to nail some stupid toad instead of targeting a mage flinging spells at you. But it's certainly not a given.

not enough info seems to be happening a lot

In my experience familiars tend not to worry too much about being killed. But they are pretty fragile. Often if they are going to be put into a position where they could be hurt then it is a simple matter to buff them up a bit though. I just really hate the wait to get it back if it does die.. in one game it could be next session, in another you have just lost a class ability permanently. Poor game design in my opinion.

It doesnt seem like a really tough call though. In combat do you go for the noncombatant who, if he dies, inconvieniences the primary targets next few days or do you take out the guy who might actually kill you?

 

[Nail]

It doesnt seem like a really tough call though. In combat do you go for the noncombatant who, if he dies, inconvieniences the primary targets next few days or do you take out the guy who might actually kill you?

True enough. But.......

I'll admit it. I'm the kind of DM who goes after familiars. And I have bad guys go after them when they want the Wiz/Sor to over-react.

When your familiar is attacked, what do you do? If you're using cool, arm-chair logic, you go after the bad guy, essentially ignoring the attack. If you're actually in the combat, at the gaming table, with only a few moments to respond? You panic, and over-compensate. You spend a round or 2 doing actions that don't affect the bad-guys much. ...which was the point of the attack.

It's something that a "well, I'd just respond by doing X" -type of discussion misses, 9 times outta 10.

 

[Nail]

well that was way too long

Just one word: Yoowza.

 

[Pielorinho]

And, you also made my point for me here. You see the animals in those conditions. Hence, they are visible. Hence, they do not have full cover. Granted, the Familiar can hide quickly when the fireworks start, but a suprise round Evard's Black Tentacles should target the Familiar just like it targets every other creature in the area.

Now, see, I didn't make your point for you, and saying I did is not very polite. I wish you wouldn't say things like that; you could have made your point without this kind of snarky comment.

With the snake on the arm, I see it for maybe ten seconds every five minutes. If the snake were intelligent and trying to protect itself, I'd see it more rarely than that.

With the puppy in the backpack, I see it because it'd be cruel to keep it completely covered. For a familiar whose life is in danger, keeping it completely covered wouldn't be cruel at all.

Daniel

 

[Nifft]

IMC, I use the "morphic field theory" to explain a lot of D&D rules oddness. A critter's "morphic field" is an emanation from its living body which extends outside of its body, and explains certain magical effects nicely.

1/ You can teleport while lifting a load determined by your Str. Clearly, your morphic field covers some loot, but not more than you can lift -- thus, certain aspects of your morphic field must come from your physical stats.

2/ When you polymorph, (some of) your stuff merges into your new form. Clearly, the stuff that merged in was within your personal morphic field.

3/ Outsiders are not as morphically strong as mortal critters -- they have no separate body distinct from their spirit. Clearly, they can't take as much loot with them when they teleport, but teleport effects are very easy for them, since they're not as anchored in reality.

(Yes, it's all hand waving, but it's nice to put some intuition behind the game rules.)

-- N

PS: What exactly does all this have to do with Psions being balanced? Perhaps the very fact that discussions about Psionic balance end up so far away from actual examples of broken builds means that -- gasp -- psionics are not broken?