Lurk's Mental Assault augment too powerful?

[Ashrem Bayle]

Mental Assault – The lurks’s attack deals 2 points of either Intelligence or Wisdom damage in addition to normal damage. You choose which type of damage to deal when activating this augment. For every 2 power points spent, this ability damage is increased by 1.

My first thought was: "Cool. That's a neat trick for shutting down spellcasters."

Then I thought: "Whoa. That's a neat trick for sending Ogre's and Trolls into comas!"

At 8th level, you can do 6 points of Intelligence damage in one strike. That's enough to drop your average unmodified ogre or troll in one hit.

Too powerful?

 

[AuraSeer]

At 8th level, your "average unmodified ogre or troll" isn't very much of a threat. Even a troll is 3 CRs below you, so you probably should be able to one-shot it every so often.

Is there a saving throw on this power?

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Hmm...I am not familiar with the details on this power, but it sounds like an efficient way to take down dinosaurs or whales other animals, I suppose.

I am not particularly concerned about ogres or trolls falling to the equivalent of a 4th level spell.

 

[Spatula]

No saving throw for that particular augment. It could probably use one, or at least a note that it can't drop a stat below a particular minimum.

 

[Solarious]

Ego Whip
Telepathy [Mind-Affecting]
Level: Psion/wilder 2
Display: Auditory
Manifesting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Medium (100 ft. +10 ft./level)
Target: One creature
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will half; see text
Power Resistance: Yes
Power Points: 3

Your rapid mental lashings assault the ego of your enemy, debilitating its confidence. The target takes 1d4 points of Charisma damage, or half that amount (minimum 1 point) on a successful save. A target that fails its save is also dazed for 1 round.

Augment
For every 4 additional power points you spend, this power’s Charisma damage increases by 1d4 points and its save DC increases by 2.

By level 8, the average Psion can whip for 2d4 points of Charisma, for a maximum a potential of 8 points, enough to drop most monstorous humanoids, animals, and other low Cha foes, plus dazing. Even a save reduces the damage to half, not negates. Level 9 opens up the gates to empower, and it just gets worse from there on. You can even do this a little earlier with Overchannel (+Talented, optional) if you felt the need.

Quick question, how much is the initial augment activation? The total (which means activation + additional augment) cannot be greater than your ML, which is 8 for 8th level Lurks, I think... so how are you pumping another 8 PP into it? I'm pretty sure an ability score damaging feature would have a PP activation...

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

Actually, I was off by one. You get the first 2 points of damage for free. No save. Then you get 1 point of damage for every 2 power points invested.

So at 5th level, you could do 4 points of Int or Wis damage.

 

[Solarious]

Free ability damage. Pretty trippy. Now for the million dollar question that I should have asked before... this damage applies only in sneak attack conditions, right? If so, then things should be fine, because rogues are dealing 3d6 damage instead of Int/Wis damage, or twice that if they dual-wield, which can also put monsters away pretty quick.

Plus, this augmentation is useless against many of the same creatures that rogues also have problems with, ie. Undead, Constructs, Elementals, Plants, and Oozes.

I don't really see that much of a problem. By the time you can reliably begin sending your opponents into comas with Int damage, rogues of the same level begin to have this strange tendency to evicerate their opponents at a similar rate. Plus, Lurks expend PP for this trick, so it won't happen all day either.

 

[Evilhalfling]

forget wis and Chr - ending a fight by sucking Int to 0 is very powerful -
hydras, giant bugs and animals of all sorts- with a single blow, no save.
the number of creatures with int < 5 is Huge. The equivlent spell is feeblemind, which is effectively save or die as 5th level spell.


purple worm (int 1) Hydra 12 heads cyro/pyro, CR12 & 13 at 4th level.

at least the terasque is immune to ability damage

 

[Hypersmurf]

Plus, this augmentation is useless against many of the same creatures that rogues also have problems with, ie. Undead, Constructs, Elementals, Plants, and Oozes.

Not having Complete Psionic, I'm not familiar with the mechanic... can it only be activated on a successful sneak attack, and does immunity to criticals grant immunity to the ability?

-Hyp.

 

[starwed]

Lurk augmentations can be applied to any attack, and at the basic level do not cost power points. You only get so many a day, though.