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General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Is the Psion class balanced?
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<blockquote data-quote="Scion" data-source="post: 2717253" data-attributes="member: 5777"><p>So what exactly is overly powerful about this guy aside from the usual suspects that all casters seem to have? The ac is nice but most any character could get the same or similar, especially caster types.</p><p></p><p>I will agree that polymorph type abilities do tend to be poorly balanced though, which seems to be where this build gets almost all of its 'problem' from. The rest of it takes 3 extra rounds of setup time, give a caster that sort of setup time and you likely wont have a chance.</p><p></p><p>Of course the psion could be taken out pretty readily by a single fireball spell at this point. Poor reflex save, no protection vs fire, low hp. He buffs up and gets a good AC but has other problems.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I guess your greatsword is doing 6d6 via a combination of two feats that require expending focus to use, which means yet another feat and a check to use effectively.. it is nice, but if the people with multiple attacks in a round are jealous something is a bit skewed <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=";)" /></p><p></p><p>I also note that you fail the check to regain focus 25% of the time at that point so it isnt completely reliable. A 3 feat chain for a 75% chance after spending a move action to potentially deal an extra 4d6 on an attack (if the attack misses you still have expended your focus after all).</p><p></p><p>If you are doing 6d6+5 (avg 26) with an attack bonus of +9 vs a fighter type doing 2d6+10 (avg 17) or so with an attack bonus of +18/+13 or so and are doing 'more' damage per round even with the 25% chance of failure to regain focus that is interesting..</p><p></p><p>Being able to do more damage per hit is nice, but in overall damage the fighter type should've been pretty far ahead. Especially if a prayer or something similar was cast.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ahh.. and now we come down to it.</p><p></p><p>The unconscious part is odd, but not unheard of. Sometimes some characters are just lucky like that. Being an elen helps this at the cost of being able to be useful during the day (massive pp expenditure).</p><p></p><p>The fighting better or as well as the fighters seems to only happen when metamorphed.. but of course other casters have the same issue with polymorph. When just swinging away and using the feats the damage is nice, but unlikely to come near the fighter types (as I showed above, using roughly the same guidelines as you used before)</p><p></p><p>Psionic healing is horribly inefficient. If this is dont much it'll eat through pp like candy. 5 pp for 1d12 hp or 7 pp for 2d12 hp is incredibly underwhelming. healing others requires spending more pp to transfer the damage to himself first and then healing them. While it is better than a wizards healing generally it isnt even a blip on the clerics radar.</p><p></p><p>The damage dealing powers of a psion I went over earlier, but to reiterate they are simply more versitile to actually make them useful later on against monster types.</p><p></p><p>Vigor is a poor, poor immitator to false life <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=";)" /> While false life tends to have less total temp hp it lasts for hours per level. While in combat it is usually better to use other powers which might actually end the battle vs this one and before it means that you need yet another prep round.</p><p></p><p>I like intellect fortress, it is a fun power, and it likely saved this character a few times given his lack of damage taking. Of course if you do then you cant absorb damage nor give yourself the save boost. Unfortunately it only lasts for one round at this point <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown :(" data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>And of course you didnt have much for energy powers anyway <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=";)" /></p><p></p><p></p><p>Overall it looks like a fun character though. Looks like it'd be incredibly easy to run out of pp very quickly however.</p><p></p><p>Start the day with 76 pp, pop up a 7 point inertial armor and be on your way. Down to 69.</p><p></p><p>First battle comes along, pop up some defensive power for 5 pp, then pop up a metamorphosis for 7 pp and move into the battle. Using only feats and such for the rest of the battle to conserve. Down to 57.</p><p></p><p>During the battle hit an intellect fortress to stave off some area of effect damaging spell for 7 points. Down to 50 points.</p><p></p><p>After the battle fix up a little damage of your own for 7pp. Down to 43.</p><p></p><p>One battle of the day down and nearly half of the pp for the day gone. Better hope you dont hit 3 battles or more today!</p><p></p><p></p><p>Your character didnt have much chance to abuse the slayer prc, but within a few levels the abuse of that would likely start kicking in. Overall it is a prc that should have slightly higher requirements to get in.</p><p></p><p>While I definately see that some of the claims have merit they seem to mostly revolve around metamorph. If that wasnt there that kills a large amount of the potential AC and damage dealing capability. Even though metamorph does interfere somewhat with the elan racials.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This post was again pretty long, but I was trying to look at each point as it was made.</p><p></p><p>In brief though:</p><p>-Lots of prep time and a lot of pp to get the impressive AC</p><p>-Metamorph has the same problems as the polymorph spells</p><p>-Outdamaging fighter types with melee seems unlikely, given the limitations inherant</p><p>-Psionic healing sucks</p><p>-Direct damage powers are much more useful than other magics in general but not in an unbalanced way because of the proliferation of saves/SR/resistances/immunities/massiveHP/and other factors which make high level direct damage dealing problematic at best, if one looks at the numbers of expected damage and cost vs other efficient ways of doing damage it tends to fall in the right ballpark</p><p>-Doing all of the things that are possible makes the pp run out incredibly fast and then you are little more than a glorified commoner</p><p></p><p></p><p>I suppose there will be some counterpoints, I look forward to them <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=";)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scion, post: 2717253, member: 5777"] So what exactly is overly powerful about this guy aside from the usual suspects that all casters seem to have? The ac is nice but most any character could get the same or similar, especially caster types. I will agree that polymorph type abilities do tend to be poorly balanced though, which seems to be where this build gets almost all of its 'problem' from. The rest of it takes 3 extra rounds of setup time, give a caster that sort of setup time and you likely wont have a chance. Of course the psion could be taken out pretty readily by a single fireball spell at this point. Poor reflex save, no protection vs fire, low hp. He buffs up and gets a good AC but has other problems. I guess your greatsword is doing 6d6 via a combination of two feats that require expending focus to use, which means yet another feat and a check to use effectively.. it is nice, but if the people with multiple attacks in a round are jealous something is a bit skewed ;) I also note that you fail the check to regain focus 25% of the time at that point so it isnt completely reliable. A 3 feat chain for a 75% chance after spending a move action to potentially deal an extra 4d6 on an attack (if the attack misses you still have expended your focus after all). If you are doing 6d6+5 (avg 26) with an attack bonus of +9 vs a fighter type doing 2d6+10 (avg 17) or so with an attack bonus of +18/+13 or so and are doing 'more' damage per round even with the 25% chance of failure to regain focus that is interesting.. Being able to do more damage per hit is nice, but in overall damage the fighter type should've been pretty far ahead. Especially if a prayer or something similar was cast. Ahh.. and now we come down to it. The unconscious part is odd, but not unheard of. Sometimes some characters are just lucky like that. Being an elen helps this at the cost of being able to be useful during the day (massive pp expenditure). The fighting better or as well as the fighters seems to only happen when metamorphed.. but of course other casters have the same issue with polymorph. When just swinging away and using the feats the damage is nice, but unlikely to come near the fighter types (as I showed above, using roughly the same guidelines as you used before) Psionic healing is horribly inefficient. If this is dont much it'll eat through pp like candy. 5 pp for 1d12 hp or 7 pp for 2d12 hp is incredibly underwhelming. healing others requires spending more pp to transfer the damage to himself first and then healing them. While it is better than a wizards healing generally it isnt even a blip on the clerics radar. The damage dealing powers of a psion I went over earlier, but to reiterate they are simply more versitile to actually make them useful later on against monster types. Vigor is a poor, poor immitator to false life ;) While false life tends to have less total temp hp it lasts for hours per level. While in combat it is usually better to use other powers which might actually end the battle vs this one and before it means that you need yet another prep round. I like intellect fortress, it is a fun power, and it likely saved this character a few times given his lack of damage taking. Of course if you do then you cant absorb damage nor give yourself the save boost. Unfortunately it only lasts for one round at this point :( And of course you didnt have much for energy powers anyway ;) Overall it looks like a fun character though. Looks like it'd be incredibly easy to run out of pp very quickly however. Start the day with 76 pp, pop up a 7 point inertial armor and be on your way. Down to 69. First battle comes along, pop up some defensive power for 5 pp, then pop up a metamorphosis for 7 pp and move into the battle. Using only feats and such for the rest of the battle to conserve. Down to 57. During the battle hit an intellect fortress to stave off some area of effect damaging spell for 7 points. Down to 50 points. After the battle fix up a little damage of your own for 7pp. Down to 43. One battle of the day down and nearly half of the pp for the day gone. Better hope you dont hit 3 battles or more today! Your character didnt have much chance to abuse the slayer prc, but within a few levels the abuse of that would likely start kicking in. Overall it is a prc that should have slightly higher requirements to get in. While I definately see that some of the claims have merit they seem to mostly revolve around metamorph. If that wasnt there that kills a large amount of the potential AC and damage dealing capability. Even though metamorph does interfere somewhat with the elan racials. This post was again pretty long, but I was trying to look at each point as it was made. In brief though: -Lots of prep time and a lot of pp to get the impressive AC -Metamorph has the same problems as the polymorph spells -Outdamaging fighter types with melee seems unlikely, given the limitations inherant -Psionic healing sucks -Direct damage powers are much more useful than other magics in general but not in an unbalanced way because of the proliferation of saves/SR/resistances/immunities/massiveHP/and other factors which make high level direct damage dealing problematic at best, if one looks at the numbers of expected damage and cost vs other efficient ways of doing damage it tends to fall in the right ballpark -Doing all of the things that are possible makes the pp run out incredibly fast and then you are little more than a glorified commoner I suppose there will be some counterpoints, I look forward to them ;) [/QUOTE]
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