Is there a spell level increase with metapsionic feats?

[Zhure]

Let's take a 20th-level psychic warrior. His power point cap, defined on page 34, is 19 power points. However, he can only manifest 6th-level power.

So, the psychic warrior takes Quicken Power, and the Dimension Door power. He can manifest Quickened Dimension Door (cost 7 Pp for dimension door + 8 PP for Quicken Power = 15 PP). The 15 PP is under his metapsionic cap of 19 power points, so yes, he can pull of this trick.

...but not very often. He has only 129 power points, and no bonus points for a high ability score

Yeah, but a quickened Dimension Door still won't let the wielder act until his next round. That is probably a poor example of what you're trying to illustrate.

Try a Quickened Vigor.

Greg

 

[NCSUCodeMonkey]

Yeah, but a quickened Dimension Door still won't let the wielder act until his next round. That is probably a poor example of what you're trying to illustrate.

Try a Quickened Vigor.

Greg

Besides, Dimension Strike from Mind's Eye is much cheaper than manifesting quickened dimension doors, and you still get your full action. Sure you're limited to line of sight and the distance is less, but I've found that it works well enough. If you can't see your opponent and he's over 75 feet away, you probably don't need to get to him that quickly anyway.

I find that one of the best metapsionic feats for psychic warriors is extend or persistent power. You're vulnerable to dispells, but it can be much cheaper to only have to manifest those 1 round/level powers once at +8, rather than five or six times a day.

NCSUCodeMonkey

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

There's an item called mind feeder or something like that, that lets the psion turned crit damage into power points. Combine that with power crit, and um...yeah

To be honest, you shouldn't be allowed to use that combo. The people who playtested the PsiH didn't use Power Crit, and stuff like that. Mixing supplements causes all kinds of headaches... I'm sorry for the DM who lets PCs use Sword and Fist, as well as Masters of the Wild.

Not that I think the supplements are necessarily unbalanced; rather, they're not really designed to work with each other.

(Also, feeder weapons are probably too cheap.)

Yeah, but a quickened Dimension Door still won't let the wielder act until his next round. That is probably a poor example of what you're trying to illustrate.

Try a Quickened Vigor.

Good point. I just used Dimension Door because I saw it mentioned somewhere... maybe not even in this thread. (Of course, an NPC psychic warrior could make a full-round attack action against PCs, then manifest quickened Dimension Door (no AoO!) to escape). For escaping, Dimension Door is better than Dimension Strike, because the Strike can't go through solid objects, and doesn't go as far. For tactical combat, Dimension Strike is so much better

 

[Cougar]

I think we have actually stumbled on one thing the psi does better than it's casting counterparts: use meta feats.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

They're better than sorcs at meta, but not better than wizards, IME. Compare a maximized Whitefire (20 dmg) to a maximized Fireball (60 dmg). See my point?

 

[Cougar]

Yeah, but the damages are based on the spell or power, not the feat. Sure, a maximized fireball will do more damage, but only because the spell scales and whitefire does not.

To maximize a fireball a wizard has to be 11th level. If they cast that spell, they would lose their highest level slot to that spell and do 60 points of damage.

A psion would have to be 12th level to maximize whitefire. It would cost 11 pp and do 20 pts of damage. The psion could manifest this power 5 times, at least (63 base pp), more than equaling the wizard in damage, albiet over a longer period (five rounds instead of one). This is, as I am sure you know, why psionic powers don't scale.

The benefit the psion gains with metapsionic feats over thier spellcasting brethren is flexibility. No spell slot is lost. If the psion wants to manifest that power at that level they can. Then they can turn around and manifest another power unmodified at the highest level they can cast. I see this as a huge benefit over spellcasters.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

You're right about most powers. Heightened Suggestion... yup. Trigger Power Heightened Suggestion... it's allowed.

Although psions just don't do anything when it comes to damage dealing. I'm hoping for some kind of fix.