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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jackelope King" data-source="post: 2724721" data-attributes="member: 31454">Until they cast dimension door and cast whatever they want. Or they use a stilled spell.You also have the option of spending power points to shoot crystal shards at tin cans on a fence rather than your opponents.First I'd like to point out that you're handwaving away a psion drawback by saying that they can fix it with feats while completely ignoring the fact that arcane casters can do the same with still spell.That said, actions are the fundamental resource unit in the game. If I do not have sufficient actions to put out a plan, then nothing else matters. You seem to think that when a psionic character expends psionic focus, then this is a minor cost. It isn't. It costs actions to regain that focus which could be better used closing with / fleeing from the enemy, or blowing enemies up, or maintaining other feats. If you don't have the actions available to you, the you can't do anything, and psonic focus consumes those actions. If you are unwilling to admit this, I'm not sure that this could really go anywhere. It'd be like claiming that you can ignore yellow lights while driving since they don't stay yellow for very long.Until you take highten spell, or use the next spell up in line which you got because you know so many spells, or you use an entirely different spell because it fits the situation better because you know so many spells, or...And the psion pays for it while the arcane casters do not.Course, the psion has to know what the target's attributes are.Course, arcanists can do this too with a feat.Course, all this does it make elemental damage viable at high levels.Course, these are the two most likely energy types to be resisted.Course, this costs the character hit points or it costs them a poorly-scaling drain on power points.I think it looks like yours is lacking, since you are intentionally ignoring the many other tradeoffs I've listed above.With pleasure. Here's the ones that occur to me right off the bat. I'm sure other folks can come up with nothing.FLAT-OUT BROKEN ARCANE SPELLSGate- Two Words: Solar Cascade. Game. Set. Match. Psions do not gain the ability to ever summon anything, which bars them from more powerful summons and the game-ending brokenness that is Gate.Disjunction- The verbal component for this spell should be "buh-bye". It just kills magic items. No equivalent in psionics.Polymorph any Object- Turn your fighter into a firbolg permanently! Turn a mouse skeleton into a dragon skeleton, then raise it to be your new undead buddy! Do whatever the hell you want! We don't care anymore!True Stirke- +20 insight bonus to an attack. Busts the hell out of power attack and is busted as hell when used in a magic item.QUESTIONABLE ARCANE SPELLSMagic Missile- gives arcanists a "sure thing" at low levels when psions have to rely on their ability to hit the enemy or their save DCs.Scorching Ray- Without metamagic it’s comparable to psionic damage at low to mid levels. With metamagic it runs roughshod up until around level 13-ish. Up until the Apocalypse Loophole, scorching ray was the spell of choice for the biggest damage hound in the game: the Artificer. This spell was only supplanted in effectiveness when someone metamagicked the hell out of a near-epic level vile spell.Protection from _____/Magic Circle Against ______- psionic characters have absolutely no way of dealing with alignment.Wind Wall- the anti-ranged attacker spell... psionic characters have no such equivalent.Scry- The psionic equivalent costs XP every time you use itShapechange- the psionic equivalent costs XP every time you use itShadow Evocation/Conjuration- Two great schools neatly packaged in two great spells. It would be like giving psions a 5th level telepathy power which let you use any telekinetic power you wanted.Wall of Force- An invincible wall. Cute.Telekinesis- What's this? Like 5 different psionic powers rolled into one. Buuuuusstteed.Prismatic sphere- A wall that either kills you or you waste 7 spells getting through it. Psions certainly don't have this.Rope Trick- AKA "Save Point". More endurance and better at recovering spells? The hell?Create Undead- Oh boy: an army for nothing!Blasphamy- Lets you kill a god with no save. That's not busted or anything.Does this mean that core magic is busted? Probably not. But neither do a few questionable powers (for example, I agree on psychic reformation) mean that psionics are busted. So far all that you and others who like to rag on psionics have done is shown that psionics are different on a mechanical level than traditional magic. My own observations into the system are based on playing two psionic characters and DMing several games with them (including one game exclusively with psionic characters).</blockquote>

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