Melee Smackdown - Who kicks more butt, PsyWar or Ftr? Prove it!

I agree with Scion's remark that there should be more valid powers for psions/psychic warriors to choose from. Ideally there should be at least 15-20 powers of 6th level for the psy war to agonize over

I do not agree that Empathic Feedback is well done. IMO, the damage should at least be typed, even if it is chosen by the manifester at the time of manifestation.

And 10 minutes per level is far from trivial: 200 minutes is plenty of time for multiple forays.
 

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Reis_Thunderwood said:
WOG-WOG THE BEATSTICK


Saves:
Fort: 23 [12 (base) +6 (Con)+5 (item)]
Reflex: 16 [6 (base)+3 (Dex)+5 (item) +2 (feat)]
Will: 10 [6 (base) -1 (Wis) +5 (item)]

His biggest weakness is going to be against creatures that he can't critical. If he can critical hit it, then it is done.

Dude, his biggest weakness, is he has the will power of a necrophiliac in a morgue... 10... it just isn't worth the electrons colliding on your screen.

Will save 10 means a 3rd level Cleric with Wis 16 has a 25% of stopping your dreadnaught with a measily hold person, whereupon you suffer the ignoble CDG...

Dominate Person by a 8th level 20 Int Wizard with Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus (50% of you failing)

You ARE going to autofail (5% chance) vs a high level enchanter or telepath. IMC, obvious fighter types are instant targets for these types of spells.

For a 20th level character, that is pathetic.
 

Scion said:
Invulnerable.[to grapple]
Not quite. You're normally invulnerable to grapple. A dragon or other good grappler who could cast Anti-magic field (or stand in one) would make pretty short work of you. While those are highly specialized foes (and my fighter is just about equally screwed against any skilled grappler with an anti-magic field), in a 20th level comparison, they're worth mentioning. So make that generally invulnerable and I'll agree. The exceptions to that are pretty much unavoidable.

My guy is also benefitted when they try to grapple. As I automatically succeed in resisting then they have just wasted a check.

Nine times out of ten, there's no attack to be wasted. Most of the time you're looking at grapple, it's coming from a creature with Improved Grab.

Also, how are you getting 28+32+d20? I dont know what some of the feats you have do so I am guessing that some of it comes from those. If any of it comes from spells then what you said in the last post about my being heavily dependant on the party goes for you as well for the same reasons. I have a way around it though, do you?

28 is the average damage my fighter scores on a hit. Close Quarters Fighting lets me add that to my grapple check to resist Improved Grab or Improved Grapple attempts. The rest of the grapple check is BAB (20) + strength (10) + morale (2). While there is some disagreement among rules monkeys as to whether miscellaneous attack bonusses like weapon focus (grapple), morale, luck, insight, etc bonusses apply to grapple checks, I think the rules work best if you assume they do. Grapple checks are "like an attack roll." Attack rolls are described exactly the same way (str+BAB+size). The FAQ, for those of you who care about that applies the prone penalty to characters in a grapple. And Power Attack in a grapple is horribly broken if attack penalties don't apply to grapple rolls (which is logical if bonusses don't). After all, since grapple damage is determined by unarmed strike, a character could theoretically power attack for max, add that to his grapple damage rolls but not worry about power attack reducing his grapple checks. If you rule that miscellaneous bonusses and penalties apply to grapple checks, there's no problem with power attack.

Just checked close quarters fighting and I am guessing that most of those plusses come from you hitting with you aoo but all that extra bonus does is allow you to resist better, not actually do anything in the grapple.

Well, other than avoid getting into a grapple, this character doesn't want to do anything in a grapple. He's got a pretty good grapple check at +32 (+27 in the anti-magic field) which will sometimes work for him (if it's a mere marilith in the anti-magic field, or if anything less than the dragon is trying to hold him at the -20, he's got a fair shot at winning). However, mostly he'd rely upon his aportive armor to get him out of grapples--or his allies to punish the creature for lowering its defenses to grapple him.

BTW--the concentration checks for manifesting a power while grappling or pinned are RIDICULOUSLY easy. For high level powers, it's easier than manifesting them on the defensive. There should at least be some kind of modifier on that. (Oh well, I guess I'll live with it in this comparison and join Thanee in the "more than a few things in the PsiHB were not even remotely well thought out" crowd afterward).

So it looks to me that you are at d20+20+10. Vs the balors d20+36 you are in a bit of trouble (also, you take extra fire damage each round you are in contact with it) and the pit fiends d20+35 isnt too shabby either.

I'm not in trouble if I can avoid being in the grapple in the first place. Which I usually can.

If you would care to point out where it says you cant use noniterative attacks that would be nice. Otherwise it sounds like you are saying that people with natural weapons can only make a single attack. I know that twf is specifically disallowed, but that is not the same thing.

It's buried in the monster manual under the description of rake in the glossary. The entry on the annis hag also supports this conclusion as her rake ability lets her attack with both claws at no penalty in a grapple. Ordinarily, she couldn't attack with more than one claw in a grapple. Unfortunately, the role of natural weapons in the grapple was one of the things that the otherwise laudable 3.5 cleanup and reorganization of the grapple rules did not make clear. However, that's been the rule all along.

Generic creatures with natural weapons are somewhat inconvenienced by grapples. Creatures with single natural weapons (like a dire wolf) gain a mixed comparitive benefit (b/c they can still use their high damage natural weapon in a grapple but weapon users are limited to light weapons). Creatures with multiple natural weapons are disadvantaged. Creatures with Improved Grab are generally at a big advantage in a grapple. Creatures with rake are VERY dangerous in a grapple. Creatures with Constrict are, CR for CR some of the most dangerous creatures in the monster manual.

If people with natural attacks are limited in such a way then that makes a great deal of grappling creatures much less fearsome. Such as the pit fiend being able to only get two claws or two wings or a tail in. (plus constrict of course)

Not really. The pit fiend, for instance attacks with one claw, deals damage, makes the improved grab, wins the grapple check, deals constrict damage, then uses his BAB to make multiple grapple checks (he's made one attack so he's got three more), grapples to pin and deals constrict damage when he wins, then grapples twice to do damage, dealing claw and constrict damage each time. He deals nearly double the damage he would deal with a full attack, has an easier time making the grapple checks than making the attack rolls because he goes against his foe's grapple check rather than their armor class, and ends up with his foe pinned and unable to do anything (unless he's a psion or has magic items that let him do stuff) without winning a grapple check against the pit fiend's full grapple bonus.

Trust me, grappling creatures are plenty scary even without being able to use multiple natural weapons inside a grapple (unless, of course, they have rake).

The save does not negate, the save halves the damage transfered. Also, with such a low chance of failing to beat SR it shouldnt be a problem (vs the balor)

Sure. Your character has a 65% chance of beating the Balor's SR. You will generally succeed. On the other hand, lets say you try to transfer 90 points of damage. That means you've got about thirty five hit points left. You beat the balor's SR, it makes its save and you get 45 hit points back. You end up with 80 hit points. If we assume that the Balor did 90 points of damage to you the previous round (that's why you could try a 90 point empathic transfer and also, coincidentally just about the amount of damage your initial calculations suggested you would take each round against the hypothetical +35 bad guy), he does 90 hit points to you this round and you're dead. Of course, the balor has now taken 225 points of damage from Empathic Transfers and Empathic Feedback and you probably did 70 points of damage if you won iniative and got off a full attack so it's taken 295 points of damage and is bleeding out if it's a standard MM Balor. Unfortunately, you're quite dead yourself. And, if it scored particularly good damage on any of the times it hit you (enough to cap out the Empathic Feedback) or if we apply it's DR to the damage you did to it, it manages to survive with 30 hit points or so.

Empathic Feedback is a REALLY good power and I'm tempted to agree with the "not well thought out" crowd regarding it. Hostile Empathic Transfer is also a REALLY good power (in fact, considering the amount of damage it does, I think it's dramatically underpriced, ignoring the secondary effect of healing you). They work really well in combination too. However, using them as primary offense is playing with fire--especially when you've got 134 hit points.

You mean like swinging my sword?

If every round they deal damage to me they take the same amount and then I attack back dealing a bunch of damage. Sounds like they are in trouble to me! The psychic warrior already deals more damage per hit than the fighter, all I need to do at that point is be able to get enough hits in to kill the sucker.

That's pretty much what I mean. However, my observation you're a lot more confident about your skill swinging the sword than the numbers calculated give you a right to be. You may well hit and you may do enough damage to win but that's not guaranteed.

See my previous note on Hostile Empathic Transfer and Empathic Feedback. They're in a lot of trouble. However, so are you. You're employing a very high risk strategy. It finishes the combat very quickly but it looks like it's going to take you into the red zone of hit points nearly every round. It just takes one of them getting a lucky crit and you're dead. Well, with the heavy fortification shield you're immune to crits but a few max damage hits could be just as bad for you.

Either way, considering the empathic feedback damage, I expect it'll be over in two rounds but it seems that at least one time in ten, you're likely to fail to beat SR on the hostile empathic transfer and end up dead the following round.

I will be hurt of course, but then that is the name of the game sometimes.

The fighter is likely to be equally mangled. He is going up against 6 attacks a round, 4 of which can instantly slay him and the other two entangle him then cause fire damage. Then, if he does succeed in killing the balor then he has to make a dc 30 reflex save or be wiped out by the blast of light.

Well, the Balor Death Throes is a serious concern for my candidate. (While it's less of a concern for your candidate, it's hardly inconsequential--even if you have both the pps and the swift action to gain improved evasion, the empathic feedback trick looks like it's going to take you down to 40-50 hp remaining on a fairly regular basis. If you blow the save, you may well be toast even with Improved Evasion). As is the vorpal sword. On the other hand, if it weren't for the heavy fortification your character has, the vorpal sword is even more of a concern for you. In order to instantly kill a character, he needs to confirm the hit. His odds of doing that against my fighter are pretty low. Especially if the fighter is using combat expertise. And doubly so with moderate fortification on his shield. His odds of doing it to your candidate would be better than 50/50 if it weren't for heavy fort.

So, no, the fighter won't be equally mangled. He is fairly easily able to get his AC high enough that the balor isn't likely to hit him more than once a round and STILL hit the balor hard enough and often enough to kill it in three rounds. So, if he takes 60 points of damage from the Balor's weapons and then fails his save against the death throes, he's still standing with a 35 hp buffer between him and death.

I've got news for you, cleave isnt going to do anything useful to these guys. So for the Glabrezu (which is the closest thing I can find to your glazebru, I am not terribly familiar with demons so if it isnt the one you mean let me know where to find it) you will be stuck to swinging and hopeing to kill just like I will be.

I meant Glabrezu. And actually, cleave is useful against them. Not as useful as it is against goblins but pretty useful nonetheless. Against their AC, my candidate can power attack for 1 and his fourth attack still only misses on a roll of 1. Their hit points are right in the range that my candidate kills one per round if he gets slightly above average damage (or if he picks up an align weapon spell from an ally). So cleave is going to add about 0.2 glazebru's per round to his pile of dead bad guys. Mostly that's significant because it's the difference between killing one glabrezu in the first two rounds and killing two. With an aligned weapon, it's the difference between just barely finishing off the second glazebru at the end of round 2 and being halfway to killing the third.

whenever I get low on hp (they have to roll a natural 20 to hit either of us) then I'll just blast that hostile wounds away, get back a bunch of hp and keep swinging. What will you do?

Yell "Cleric!" On the other hand, considering my candidate's extra attacks, attack bonus, AC (we can't count on everyone always needing a natural 20 to hit unless we can adjust our AC to their attack bonus), and hit points, that's not going to happen as often.

Sure, I dont have a ton of pp in allotment to use for the day, but I still have a nearly full reserve. If it comes down to live or die I can dip into my extra pp and forgo a few of those 8 hour powers. Does the fighter have any such resources to dip into?

Not really. On the other hand, he seems to do about as much damage without his reserves as your PsiWar does blowing all of his. Only the 20 pp psionic lion's charge while Expanded and Form of Doom puts you ahead.

Oh, and good luck spotting or hearing them approach ;)
Dude, they're evil outsiders. They won't be either visible or audible because they're going to teleport in. Spot and listen are advantages for your character. But they aren't going to win the competition.

Yes, and yet again I will state that most of that [the fact that the fighter candidate does more than double the PsiWar's damage per round] simply comes down to you picking better gear. If I had picked up boots of hastieness as well then my average damage per round would shoot up greatly. If I had not picked up suppression and luck (which neither really come into play in this comparison) then I could have had other enhancements that would deal damage.

One swing comes from extra gear. The other comes from BAB. Also there's five points of attack bonus from BAB to consider.

For all that you claim your damage could be better if you had picked different gear you ignore the fact that my damage could be better with different gear too. (Dropping the enhancement bonusses in return for special abilities and relying upon my allies for buffs makes my guy's damage go up a lot. Going to a +1 (+5 GMW) holy, Parrying, wounding, evil outsider bane halberd bumps my character's average damage up to 192 points of damage +5 points of con/round (total 252 in round 1 and 232 in round 2) including crits against the generic evil 20 HD AC 35 etc guy and 316 in round 1, 296 in round 2 if he's an evil outsider). Stop trying to claim bonusses for equipment you didn't include in your build. That's a two-way street. (For that matter, have you added up the total value of equipment in your build? While I don't doubt your word that it all fits under the 760kgp cap, I think a lot of this "with different equipment I could do this that, the other, and cook breakfast while I'm at it" nonsense would stop if you had to look at the opportunity cost of what you're giving up. If my fighter somehow had manifester levels, I would happily snap up the Suppressing enhancement for him--even at the cost of Holy on his halberd and some of his miscellaneous horn of fog-style items. Unfortunately, it would do him no good so he uses what he's got now.

But even with those, against high hd creatures my average damage is higher than yours. Currently you are getting 2 more swings than I am, that is where the disperity comes from. That is from my not choosing certain pieces of equipment as well as you. Which is why I said that part of this exercise is faulty.

As I said, my character hardly has the best equipment he could have. The boots of speed are useful, no doubt about it. But you're not going to pick up two attacks by buying boots of speed, you'll only pick up one. And based on my 15 second appraisal wherin I guessed at the value of your equipment I didn't know off the top of my head, you seem to have about 730kgp right now. So, you could pick up boots but not boots and everything else that might come in handy.

Putting up these two powers drastically increases my damage output for quite some time along with giving me some decent DR, faster movement, and I can scare away lesser mortals who might otherwise be in the way.

Well, faster movement? Yes. Scaring away lesser mortals? Yes. DR? No more than you've already got from Inertial Barrier. "Some time"? Reread the powers. You can keep up expansion for 44 minutes if you overchannel and extend it. You can't keep up Form of Doom for more than 7-8 minutes even by overchanneling and extending it. That's enough time for a couple battles in the kick in the door style game. It's not enough time to write home about.

Also, if I am useing feedback and transfer then I am useing their hp to damage them. It is a fun combo ;)

I have no doubt that it would be fun. It's the kind of manuever that will case DMs to houseful Empathic Feedback faster than 3.0 harm. It's that good. However, it's also very risky when you've only got 130 some hit points and your enemies have 225-600 hit points. You're pretending that risk doesn't exist. It does.

If you drop the 10 points into ac in order to get the dragon to be able to miss then you are suddenly hitting much less.

Actually, I'm still hitting nearly as well as you are :D The extra attacks make up for the fact that I'm missing a little bit more often.

But then, all he has to do is drop a darkness and you are in some massive trouble. Or improved invis (bet he has more dispells then you have potions).

3.5 Darkness. . . whatever. Doesn't worry me in the slightest. Improved Invisibility? Well, now I've held him off for one round. If he dispels me, that's another round. I'm happy to go at that all day (metaphorically speaking. Realistically, the character probably can't keep it up more than a couple rounds). But that buys the wizards time to get their meteor swarm/Energy Drain/Gate mojo up and running and the clerics time to do their things.

Also, with 6 attacks a round with a starting value of +42 I doubt he will be missing either of us except on a 1 (even with your 10 points really). That is the problem with looking at dragons, they have a ton of gear and are incredibly intelligent and have spells.

Yeah, they've got a lot of things they can do. However, with 10 points of AC, his primaries needs a 14 to hit me and his secondaries need a 19 (16 with multi-attack). If he's doing much better than that, it's power attack that isn't hitting me.

Still though, if I blow through a good portion of power points (which is not unlikely vs something so much above my CR) then putting up expansion and form of doom would be a good plan. If I drop off my skin of the defender and pick up a couple of other items, one of which happens to be boots of speed, then I'll be sitting pretty with 8 attacks a round.

Well, first things first. The dragon is CR 20. So it's exactly your CR. However, dragons tend to be rather extreme melee threats for their CR. Evil Outsiders have a wider range of abilities but are less physically threatening.

Second, which character are you comparing here? Is it the character you posted, the one that also has a +5 ring of protection and a +5 amulet of natural armor (which makes it three neck-slot items by the way), or the one who swapped out his weapon powers for extra damage and picked up boots of speed, or this new one who ditched his skin of the defender to pick up "a couple extra items"? There's no doubt that a psywar could be optimally equipped to deal with this situation but there's no doubt my candidate could get different eqipment too. If I drop evil outsider bane off the weapon and pick up a dragonbane weapon, I look to be better off too but that doesn't prove anything. If I swap my feats around, ditch Iron will for True Believer and start wearing the helm of the purple plume, I'm doing pretty well too. If I swap out the ring of spell storing and the luck blade for a gem of seeing that I fit into the eye of my helmet, I'm doing pretty well. But I didn't.

Third, 8 attacks/round are nifty and all that, but, given your character's attack bonus, the only ones likely to hit are your primary attack (and a second primary from haste if you do have the boots).

Still not enough to win, but then your fighter cant win either so I see no point really. Whatever defensive spells the dragon puts up will do bad things to the fighter, but my weapon will dispel them. Likely though these spells will help insure victory over said fighter (such as the improved invis stated above).

Is this the suppressing weapon that you traded out for a flaming frost psychokinetic weapon? Really, how many different characters are you comparing here? Of course, if you have five different PsyWars constructed to meet different challenges, you'll be better than a single character constructed to deal with whatever fate throws his way. But that rather vitiates the point of comparing various candidates.

8th level spell. Useing up a few 6th level spells is chump change compared to useing a spell level that is combatative at these levels.

Still though, even ignoring the various other ways I have to fix this problem, 3 pearls of power 6th are 108k. A pearl of power 8th is 64k so that is all right.

So which equipment are you giving up to buy these pearls of power? The stuff on your character listing? The amulet and ring you added for your initial comparison? The skin of the Defender you added after that? The boots of speed you want to include now?

Since this comparison is at least ostensibly supposed to track how characters would interact in a party, I don't have any problem with your relying upon some healing to get them all up as you initially proposed. And I'm fine with the official score of my candidate being based upon the +5 armor, +5 shield, and +4 halberd I statted him up with. However, the record should also reflect that your candidate is consuming several Heal spells from party members to keep his buffs up throughout the day and my character is not.

I offer the mind blank example not as something to factor into the direct comparison but rather to factor into the analysis of the conclusions.

So far, my conclusions read like this:

1. Empathic Feedback is hideously overpowered and potentially gamebreaking.
2. Your PsyWar can perform adequately in the role of a party tank at 20th level but will require a lot more healing and plays a far more risky game (Empathic Feedback, hostile empathic transfer) than the fighter.
3. Your PsyWar can spend a round and blow his entire wad of power points to be somewhat more effective than a fighter of his level for one combat.
4. Your PsyWar is more flexible than the fighter.
5. Despite that flexibility, your PsyWar does not rely upon his companions/items less than the fighter; he relies upon them for different things. (Mostly healing for the amount of damage he takes in most fights and the amount of damage he takes to keep his powers up).
6. A party where a PsyWar replaces the fighter will be heavily challenged by multiple EL=APL fights per day. While the fighter tears through physical opposition short of dragons without sustaining much injury, the PsyWar gets mauled, spends pps to heal himself while wounding them, and hits the top of the red zone for hit points every time. After the fight, he'll probably suck up more healing from the cleric than the fighter.
7. A party where the PsyWar replaces the fighter will be less challenged by single EL>APL fights. The PsyWar blows his whole pp reserve and is better prepared for several eventualities.
8. In general, the PsyWar is more likely to get killed than the fighter. However, he's more likely to take something that outclasses him with him.
9. If I'm the player of a character in a solo game, I'll pick the PsyWar.
10. If, OTOH, I'm the player of the party cleric or wizard and I'm picking the fourth member of the party to stand between me and the dragon or balor, I'll pick the fighter every day of the week. The fighter doesn't have the "please go kill my friends" Empathic Feedback sign on his chest. The fighter has more room to go up in power if I buff him. The fighter requires less healing and is less likely to die. Having a party member who is dancing a jig on the thin end of his hit point wedge like the PsyWar in question is is asking to have nine fights go really well and the tenth go horribly, horribly wrong. The fighter is the more stable and dependable character. And that counts for a lot.

Slightly ;) 1k. Doesnt last all day though. 2k for two castings would.

I was surprised how much of a difference the four points of AC made in the "surprised while sleeping scenario." I would guess that

Wow.. well, lets see.. 30minutes of see invis today (4k) for the cost of a standard action. alter self for 30 minutes (which I dont see doing much for you, but ok)

Alter Self: Troglodyte form has 6 points of natural armor which stack with the 5 points of enhancement bonus to natural armor from the amulet (one of the benefits of 3.5). So, the character's base AC vs. his dodge target goes up to 52. Being able to fight as well as your candidate (5 points AC=AC 57) while having an AC that the unbuffed wyrm needs a 15 to hit with his primary attack and a 20 to hit with his secondaries seems like something to me. Even if the dragon pulls +9 to hit from buffs (most of which would be short-term) his secondaries still only hit half the time. 70 hit points or so thank me.

(4k). Quickened divine favor (I have no idea why, maybe to help it not be dispelled.. since everything cast out of a ring of spell storing has a min casting time of 1 standard ction) (25k). I dont see how any of that helps with spotting though.

I missed the "minimum of 1 standard action" bit. So, make that Righteous Might. It doesn't help with spotting

Seeing invis for 30 minutes a casting doesnt seem like it would help much, same for alter self. It certainly wont matter more than one battle at best and likely there wont be time in battle to switch things around like that (here, put that spell in the ring so I can use it on myself!).

That's at least four times as long as the considerable length of time the PsyWar's Form of Doom can last. It's not going to make a big difference in surprise situations but can make a big difference in a dungeon crawl or assault situation. Those are the times when there will be time to switch things around. Other than Righteous Might, etc. it's not for use during combat.

So no, you arent even in the same ball park of flexibility. Although you are in the same amount of monetary useage spell wise I suppose. Unless of course you want to be able to see invis for long enough a day to matter.. then we are starting to get into pretty good money (8 hours of see invis = 64k worth of pearls)

You don't need to be able to see invisible things 24 hours a day to matter. You need to be able to see them when they show up. Believe it or not, about 30-40% of the time, you can guess when they might show up. (We're going into the enemy complex, they may have invisible guards or assassins, I put up See Invisibility; there's an assassin who's supposed to be stalking us and waiting for us to leave the safety of the villa, so I put up see invisibility; we're going into negotiations with an untrustworthy foe, I put up see Invisibility just in case; ahh heck, the fighters are handily winning this fight in the temple of elemental evil, let's put up See Invisibility just in case someone's sneaking around to death attack us, the assassin got away last time--oh, hey there he is). That's why a lot of people actually have see invisibility type powers when they can't be kept up 24 hours a day.

Alone, I would agree that the fighter isn't in the same ballpark of flexibility. In a party, he's in the same ballpark, he's just getting soundly beaten. Fortunately, every character in a party doesn't need to be maximally flexible.

On the other hand, I notice you've discounted or ignored every kind of non-magical flexibility. Power attack against low AC? Doesn't count. Combat Expertise to reduce damage from the dragon? Doesn't count. Spring attack to avoid AoOs from the dragon, balor, pit fiend, whatever and control the pace of the combat? Doesn't count. Improved trip to put the hurt on humanoid opponents and control the pace of combat? Doesn't count. Elusive Target so as to be less vulnerable to a dragon power attacking or a blackguard/sorceror making a spirited charge/true strike/power attack/smite? Doesn't even show up on the radar. With a scoring system like that, it's no wonder you think fighters suck.

To deal with credible threats and to heal. Your guy cant heal on his own, my guy can. Against credible threats you are seriously hurting after each battle, if you survivie.

Really? You seem to have missed all of the calculations in this thread. Against the abstract threat, my candidate takes no appreciable damage unless caught flatfooted and even then takes only about 31 points per combat. Against specific threats, the Balor's Death Throes and the Pit Fiend's Meteor Swarm are the most likely to do him damage but he comes out with noticably less damage than the PsyWar and is far more likely to survive. Against the dragon, it all depends upon what the dragon gets out of his buffs but my candidate seems more likely to survive keeping it occupied for two rounds of full attacks than your candidate.

Using up 11 pp against a credible threat and being able to do that 4 times a day certainly isnt bad. 4 battles a day and everyone is wearing thin.
OK, I'll bite. Which power is it that you use once to make sure you win against a credible threat. (And which is the credible threat?) Is that a single augmented hostile empathic transfer that's supposed to carry you through? It's not enough to be a form of doom or a maximally augmented Expansion.

I dont 'need' those against most things, they are there to use if the situation is dire.

so I have a fall back plan, one which can seriously put a damper on most anythings day.

Actually, it seems to me that you do need those things [Expansion and Form of Doom] to match the fighter's damage output (excluding empathic feedback; if you include it though, you need to figure out whether the whatever it is kills you while killing itself).

If the PsyWar doesn't do that, he ends up emerging battered, bleeding, and narrowly victorious from all sorts of fights the fighter wins with ease.

Can the fighter say the same? If I get incredibly lucky on a good round I can kill off the dragon in a single round (astronomical chances against this of course), but all it takes is 34 pp or so.

How is that 34 pp? The Psionic Lion's Charge is 20 pp. Form of Doom is 11. Expansion to Huge is 7. Expansion to huge as a free action is 13. 44 pps if you spend one round buffing and then charge. If you spend two rounds buffing, by all the calculations done so far, you're already dead.

As for astronomically lucky, the fighter can win by getting astronomically lucky too. 5 confirmed crits. Average: 435 points of damage with my dramatically less than optimal. Or Power Attack for 20 and score two crits. Average damage: 411. Out of five attacks, there's something like a 0.25% chance it could happen. How astronomically lucky did you need to be?

Against just the generic +35 to hit, 35 ac, and 300 hp body I can take him out. With a few better choices for equipment (such as boots of haste) then I can take him out as fast as the fighter can (since he was already useing boots of haste this isnt doing more than leveling the playing field). Especialy if any of those bonuses come from spells that can be dispelled.

Even with boots of haste, I don't think you pull even with the fighter. You pull up to something like 100 points of damage per round. That's still a lot less than 165.
 
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green slime said:
I do not agree that Empathic Feedback is well done. IMO, the damage should at least be typed, even if it is chosen by the manifester at the time of manifestation.

It is typed, it is empathic ;) (yes, I know it says no type, this is a joke)

What sort of type would you prefer? I definately like that it can cut through regen though, it is one of the few things that can actually do that in a useful manner.

Otherwise though, I could see it remaining no type but but granting SR, and if that is too strong for people then have it deal half back or whatever the damage is, whichever is lower. With those two things I doubt many people would have a problem with it.

Well, no one except those that feel any and every spell/power is overpowered by definition (yes, these people do exist).

green slime said:
And 10 minutes per level is far from trivial: 200 minutes is plenty of time for multiple forays.

I dont think that I said trivial, if I did I mistyped.

10 minutes duration is the minimum for a useful multi-battle buff. Anything that is less than this should be of incredible power for its level (1 round/level powers should be especially powerful).

Still, 1 hour/level powers are nice. They can actually be useful for their cost (generally weaker for their cost). The 10 min/level are stronger for their cost but are good for at least one battle (you dont know that it is going to be in the next room). Anything less than that and they are effectively one battle abilities and as such need the power to compensate. Otherwise you are required to get schism and/or quicken just to be useful. Bit rough.

Perhaps I am not explaining it well, but I'll try again later if i can think of a better way to say it.
 

WogWog kicks ass
And reminds me I screwed up one or two numbers on the balrog example I did but hell If Im going babk to update it.
One comment from experience though.
Characters like Wog-Wog are awesome until they meet a monster with power attack. At that point they have a tendancy to die in one round which is a bit of a fudger :o/

However I dont think dancing works as you think.
Ill give the text, and my reasons.

Dancing: As a standard action, a dancing weapon can be loosed to attack on its own. It fights for 4 rounds using the base attack bonus of the one who loosed it and then drops.

Ok I would read this to mean that the weapon attacks with the wielders BAB + the weapon enchantment. I would NOT allow it to add in str, feats or anything else.

Even if you disagree with the interpretation Id suggest you rule that way for the following reason:
Its just toooooooo broken. I mean seriously, fighting with all the benefits of TWF AND THF ? Thats just so broken, and you also come to the question of.
If I have Quickdraw, how many dancig weapons can I set off at once.. all of them ?
Thats a load of attacks if every weapon is a dancing weapon of speed (5 per weapon + my attack infact)
 

Elder-Basilisk said:
Not quite. You're normally invulnerable to grapple. A dragon or other good grappler who could cast Anti-magic field (or stand in one) would make pretty short work of you. While those are highly specialized foes (and my fighter is just about equally screwed against any skilled grappler with an anti-magic field), in a 20th level comparison, they're worth mentioning. So make that generally invulnerable and I'll agree. The exceptions to that are pretty much unavoidable.

So the single exception is an incredible grappler that has antimagic field up and somehow I cannot escape in time so that I am not there for it to grapple?

Ok then. Invulnerable except in incredible circumstances. But then invulnerable everywhere else still qualifies as invulnerable. Whereas your character is much, much more vulnerable. Especially vs the dragon, even when not in an antimagic field. He will still tear the fighter apart.

At least the psychic warrior has a chance. But saying 'less vulnerable' when the actual case is 'invulnerable under 99%+ of circumstances'.

Elder-Basilisk said:
Nine times out of ten, there's no attack to be wasted. Most of the time you're looking at grapple, it's coming from a creature with Improved Grab.

Ok then, their free check is automatically failed. Which vs someone not so protected would be a free attack against them. So if there is one less attack against me then I'd have to say that the attack was wasted.

Elder-Basilisk said:
28 is the average damage my fighter scores on a hit. Close Quarters Fighting lets me add that to my grapple check to resist Improved Grab or Improved Grapple attempts.

Yep, which is exactly what I said. But you said, 'Only the best grapplers have a chance of beating a 28+32+d20 grapple check.' which heavily implies you can do it repeatidly, not just in an incredibly narrow set of circumstances.

But then, dragon boy has a grapple check of d20+58 without any special bonuses.

Still, spending a feat to be able to resist people getting you into grapples is nice. Seems incredibly limited though.

Elder-Basilisk said:
The rest of the grapple check is BAB (20) + strength (10) + morale (2). While there is some disagreement among rules monkeys as to whether miscellaneous attack bonusses like weapon focus (grapple), morale, luck, insight, etc bonusses apply to grapple checks, I think the rules work best if you assume they do.

There is a debate? Havent seen that one.

SRD:
A grapple check is like a melee attack roll. Your attack bonus on a grapple check is: Base attack bonus + Strength modifier + special size modifier

That is it. Feats can overrule this by specifically saying that they add in.

Weapon focus does specifically say it adds in though. When you choose weapon focus (grapple).

I can see the debate for weapon focus though for other weapons, but I think that the specific rule right on the feat about taking it for grapple would overule that as I wouldnt allow someone to stack the two feats (grappling with a weapon when focused in both).

Elder-Basilisk said:
Grapple checks are "like an attack roll." Attack rolls are described exactly the same way (str+BAB+size). The FAQ, for those of you who care about that applies the prone penalty to characters in a grapple. And Power Attack in a grapple is horribly broken if attack penalties don't apply to grapple rolls (which is logical if bonusses don't). After all, since grapple damage is determined by unarmed strike, a character could theoretically power attack for max, add that to his grapple damage rolls but not worry about power attack reducing his grapple checks. If you rule that miscellaneous bonusses and penalties apply to grapple checks, there's no problem with power attack.

I guess technically it doesnt say it is a melee damage roll that you are making for damage, so power attack doesnt necissarily add any damage ;)

Elder-Basilisk said:
BTW--the concentration checks for manifesting a power while grappling or pinned are RIDICULOUSLY easy. For high level powers, it's easier than manifesting them on the defensive. There should at least be some kind of modifier on that. (Oh well, I guess I'll live with it in this comparison and join Thanee in the "more than a few things in the PsiHB were not even remotely well thought out" crowd afterward).

You are saying that 20+level is easier than 15+level?

I think that you are useing some funny math ;)

Elder-Basilisk said:
I'm not in trouble if I can avoid being in the grapple in the first place. Which I usually can.

Possibly, there are a few factors that come into play but sure, avoid that grapple.

Elder-Basilisk said:
It's buried in the monster manual under the description of rake in the glossary. The entry on the annis hag also supports this conclusion as her rake ability lets her attack with both claws at no penalty in a grapple. Ordinarily, she couldn't attack with more than one claw in a grapple. Unfortunately, the role of natural weapons in the grapple was one of the things that the otherwise laudable 3.5 cleanup and reorganization of the grapple rules did not make clear. However, that's been the rule all along.

If you can find a direct quote in the srd please do.

Elder-Basilisk said:
Sure. Your character has a 65% chance of beating the Balor's SR. You will generally succeed.

Umm.. They have SR 28, with my feats and such I get manifestor level 24 which means that I have an 85% chance to break the SR. That is pretty likely.

Elder-Basilisk said:
On the other hand, lets say you try to transfer 90 points of damage. That means you've got about thirty five hit points left. You beat the balor's SR, it makes its save and you get 45 hit points back. You end up with 80 hit points. If we assume that the Balor did 90 points of damage to you the previous round, he does 90 hit points to you this round and you're dead. Of course, the balor has now taken 225 points of damage from Empathic Transfers and Empathic Feedback and you probably did 70 points of damage if you won iniative and got off a full attack so it's taken 295 points of damage and is bleeding out if it's a standard MM Balor. Unfortunately, you're quite dead yourself. And, if it scored particularly good damage on any of the times it hit you (enough to cap out the Empathic Feedback) or if we apply it's DR to the damage you did to it, it manages to survive with 30 hit points or so.

I can see that I will have to go back through and fix up the equipment list to make it a bit more worthwhile.

But then, even with the one I have put up the balor does almost no damage to me at all. I am immune to most of his spells, his attacks do little damage to me and have no chance of entangling me nor instantly slaying.

The balor just doesnt 'do' 90 points of damage a round to the psychic warrior. He barely even does that max anyway.

Neither of our characters can actually kill the guy in an actual game though (unless freedom of movement protects against dazing, which is highly unlikely)

Elder-Basilisk said:
Empathic Feedback is a REALLY good power and I'm tempted to agree with the "not well thought out" crowd regarding it. Hostile Empathic Transfer is also a REALLY good power (in fact, considering the amount of damage it does, I think it's dramatically underpriced, ignoring the secondary effect of healing you). They work really well in combination too. However, using them as primary offense is playing with fire--especially when you've got 134 hit points.

Empathic feedback is a nice power really. It is useful, but not very long on duration. I am not sure if it is too good though. After all, it has a pretty high cost behind it.

After all, what sort of effect would you expect from a 9th level spell/power anyway? It only works vs melee attacks, has a limit that tends to be easy to reach (even stretching it as far as I could both of our characters minimum damage exceeds it), and is just a buff.

But it wouldnt hurt my feelings if it allowed the recipient of the empathic damage to get SR to avoid taking any damage from it. I am not really sure why it doesnt actually.

Elder-Basilisk said:
That's pretty much what I mean. However, my observation you're a lot more confident about your skill swinging the sword than the numbers calculated give you a right to be. You may well hit and you may do enough damage to win but that's not guaranteed.

I can see yet again that I will have to redue the equipment better. Going mainly for just a general character with a small amount of min/maxing apparently doesnt help anyone here, I'll fix it up a bit later.

Still though, most of my confidence comes from being able to walk into just about any situation and have a response to it. Generally very good responses at that.

The fighter that you have posted cannot say the same.

Elder-Basilisk said:
See my previous note on Hostile Empathic Transfer and Empathic Feedback. They're in a lot of trouble. However, so are you. You're employing a very high risk strategy. It finishes the combat very quickly but it looks like it's going to take you into the red zone of hit points nearly every round. It just takes one of them getting a lucky crit and you're dead.

All crits against my character are negated 100% of the time.

High risk strategies are more fun to play anyway. See the thread about 'all power attack, all the time'.

Elder-Basilisk said:
Either way, considering the empathic feedback damage, I expect it'll be over in two rounds but it seems that at least one time in ten, you're likely to fail to beat SR on the hostile empathic transfer and end up dead the following round.

Not against the balor, if it doesnt use blasphemy I dont see how it could possibly beat the psychic warrior.

Well, except for implosion. I hate save or dies. I wonder why it doesnt have any descriptors or ways to become immune.. crazy clerics have the best save or dies

Elder-Basilisk said:
Well, the Balor Death Throes is a serious concern for my candidate. (While it's less of a concern for your candidate, it's hardly inconsequential--even if you have both the pps and the swift action to gain improved evasion, the empathic feedback trick looks like it's going to take you down to 40-50 hp remaining on a fairly regular basis. If you blow the save, you may well be toast even with Improved Evasion). As is the vorpal sword. On the other hand, the vorpal sword is even more of a concern for you. In order to instantly kill a character, he needs to confirm the hit. His odds of doing that against my fighter are pretty low. Especially if the fighter is using combat expertise. His odds of doing it to your candidate are better than 50/50.

Death throws could kill either character really, it is pretty big and bad. I am guessing that 'light damage' is effectively nonelemental. But then, it is con based, so the dc will be lower for my guy ;) This guy doesnt really use immediate actions during the battle except in emergencies, which about to die in a horrible flash of light would definately qualify for.

Also, my character is immune to being vorpaled. In addition, my ac is effectively the same as yours except when you use expertise so 50/50 is a bit on the wrong side yes?

Elder-Basilisk said:
So, no, the fighter won't be equally mangled. He is fairly easily able to get his AC high enough that the balor isn't likely to hit him more than once a round and STILL hit the balor hard enough and often enough to kill it in three rounds. So, if he takes 60 points of damage from the Balor's weapons and then fails his save against the death throes, he's still standing with a 35 hp buffer between him and death.

The balors weapons actually do little damage. The big risk is being instantly slain and/or entangled and burned.

What the fighter will really have to watch out for are the special abilities. Drop a firestorm on the fighters head and then power word stun him. While he is stunned summon up another balor. Then one power word stuns or blasphemies while the other kills.

Elder-Basilisk said:
I meant Glabrezu. And actually, cleave is useful against them. Not as useful as it is against goblins but pretty useful nonetheless. Against their AC, my candidate can power attack for 1 and his fourth attack still only misses on a roll of 1. Their hit points are right in the range that my candidate kills one per round if he gets slightly above average damage (or if he picks up an align weapon spell from an ally). So cleave is going to add about 0.2 glazebru's per round to his pile of dead bad guys. Mostly that's significant because it's the difference between killing one glabrezu in the first two rounds and killing two. With an aligned weapon, it's the difference between just barely finishing off the second glazebru at the end of round 2 and being halfway to killing the third.

Since they dont hurt either of us pretty much ever I dont see it as being a big deal. My guy without any changes will kill one every other round without any useful amount of damage unless there are a 'lot' of them.

Elder-Basilisk said:
Yell "Cleric!" On the other hand, considering my candidate's extra attacks, attack bonus, AC (we can't count on everyone always needing a natural 20 to hit unless we can adjust our AC to their attack bonus), and hit points, that's not going to happen as often.

As often as what? I get to ignore the problem for quite some time, the fighter cannot.

Elder-Basilisk said:
Not really. On the other hand, he seems to do about as much damage without his reserves as your PsiWar does blowing all of his. Only the 20 pp psionic lion's charge while Expanded and Form of Doom puts you ahead.

No, not 'puts me ahead', it is 'decimates any chance you have of competing'.

Even without dumping them the psychic warrior does more damage on a successful hit, he is simply missing one attack a round so falls behind in damage there. But with form of doom and psionics lions charge against the majority of opponents the fighter does only a fraction of the damage. A small fraction at that.

Elder-Basilisk said:
Dude, they're evil outsiders. They won't be either visible or audible because they're going to teleport in. Spot and listen are advantages for your character. But they aren't going to win the competition.

right, because obviously every evil outsider knows exactly where you are, always jumps into combat, and never uses any tactics.

I dont care what they are, the situation of them being able to avoid any skills is just not going to happen that often.

Along with nearly every other situation where spot and listen checks are impotant. The psychic warrior beats the fighter down handily (+23 spot check is nice! especially with being immune to things like invis).

Elder-Basilisk said:
For all that you claim your damage could be better if you had picked different gear you ignore the fact that my damage could be better with different gear too. (Dropping the enhancement bonusses in return for special abilities and relying upon my allies for buffs makes my guy's damage go up a lot. Going to a +1 (+5 GMW) holy, Parrying, wounding, evil outsider bane halberd bumps my character's average damage up to 192 points of damage +5 points of con/round (total 252 in round 1 and 232 in round 2) including crits against the generic evil 20 HD AC 35 etc guy and 316 in round 1, 296 in round 2 if he's an evil outsider). Stop trying to claim bonusses for equipment you didn't include in your build. That's a two-way street. (For that matter, have you added up the total value of equipment in your build? While I don't doubt your word that it all fits under the 760kgp cap, I think a lot of this "with different equipment I could do this that, the other, and cook breakfast while I'm at it" nonsense would stop if you had to look at the opportunity cost of what you're giving up. If my fighter somehow had manifester levels, I would happily snap up the Suppressing enhancement for him--even at the cost of Holy on his halberd and some of his miscellaneous horn of fog-style items. Unfortunately, it would do him no good so he uses what he's got now.

Yes, you can change your gear, but you cant get much better than what you are at right now. Also, I have already changed mine to not use anything from other people except what I give them to use on me (or, failing that, an item on myself which also works).

No, my gear value is about the same as yours, and yours is 780k.

Elder-Basilisk said:
Well, faster movement? Yes. Scaring away lesser mortals? Yes. DR? No more than you've already got from Inertial Barrier. "Some time"? Reread the powers. You can keep up expansion for 44 minutes if you overchannel and extend it. You can't keep up Form of Doom for more than 7-8 minutes even by overchanneling and extending it. That's enough time for a couple battles in the kick in the door style game. It's not enough time to write home about.

I havent used inertial barrier at all, I am actually thinking of getting rid of it for some other power.

Powers that only last for 10 minutes I assume will only be good for one battle in the vast majority of cases for numerous reasons.

Also, your fighter has no movement in comparison, so it is valid to bring up.

Elder-Basilisk said:
I have no doubt that it would be fun. It's the kind of manuever that will case DMs to houseful Empathic Feedback faster than 3.0 harm. It's that good. However, it's also very risky when you've only got 130 some hit points and your enemies have 225-600 hit points. You're pretending that risk doesn't exist. It does.

The same dm's that houserule anything that people use. 'what? everyone in the party got weapon focus! broken! now it only grants a +1 to a single attack per battle'.

Too many people on these boards go overboard on treating things that are useful like they are the plauge.

I have not pretended that risk does not exist, my character has ways to get around it and things it can do while in trouble. The fighter does not.

Elder-Basilisk said:
3.5 Darkness. . . whatever. Doesn't worry me in the slightest. Improved Invisibility? Well, now I've held him off for one round. If he dispels me, that's another round. I'm happy to go at that all day (metaphorically speaking. Realistically, the character probably can't keep it up more than a couple rounds). But that buys the wizards time to get their meteor swarm/Energy Drain/Gate mojo up and running and the clerics time to do their things.

Right, we are talking about single characters, so saying, 'well, if I stand there other people will eventually do something' is not helpful. Might as well play the pet rock at that point.

I had forgotten that they had made darkness useless in 3.5. Improved invis is pretty nice though and being able to dispel your potions and getting an aoo everytime you chug one, not too shabby for the big bad. You never do anything, he kills you.

Elder-Basilisk said:
Yeah, they've got a lot of things they can do. However, with 10 points of AC, his primaries needs a 14 to hit me and his secondaries need a 19 (16 with multi-attack). If he's doing much better than that, it's power attack that isn't hitting me.

Sure, assuming no feats (other than the short blurb about multiattack) and no gear.

Still, a few rounds of that and your guy is toast anyway.

Although, it would be funny for him to to defensive and use expertise and then power attack for as much as possible.. just hopeing for that lucky 20.. or popping down a spell or two to help.

Dragons are rough customers.

Elder-Basilisk said:
Well, first things first. The dragon is CR 20. So it's exactly your CR. However, dragons tend to be rather extreme melee threats for their CR.

That would be the exact point I made. They are listed as one thing but generally considered to be higher.



There is more here, but I am getting really tired of typing out such a long reply, so I'll just skip over most of the rest.

Elder-Basilisk said:
So far, my conclusions read like this:

1. Empathic Feedback is hideously overpowered and potentially gamebreaking.

You are basing this on what exactly? A character who is level 20 and optimized to make the best use out of it possible? And even then it isnt hideously overpowered, merely very strong and something to think about (as most/all CR 20 guys have, well, except the fighter ;) He doesnt seem to have anything special that a lower level guy couldnt have anyway)

Elder-Basilisk said:
2. Your PsyWar can perform adequately in the role of a party tank at 20th level but will require a lot more healing and plays a far more risky game (Empathic Feedback, hostile empathic transfer) than the fighter.

That is just this one build and it isnt terribly risky. Hostile is there if he gets into trouble (fall back option) which the fighter does not have. Empathic feedback helps even out the extra attack he is missing from not being a full fighter. He doesnt require any more healing than the fighter, in fact he can do his own so he requires even less. I had simply put it up on the original build as an extra option so that he could be at peak 24 hours a day. Your fighter does not do that even with the help from others.

Elder-Basilisk said:
3. Your PsyWar can spend a round and blow his entire wad of power points to be somewhat more effective than a fighter of his level for one combat.

Here goes that somewhat again. Being able to deal at least triple the amount of damage the fighter could hope to do seems a bit better than 'somewhat'.

He can spend most of the points that he has extra above and beyond what he needs to stay at full form all day to do this. If he needs to he can dip into his other pps and lose out on some of his powers later in the day.

Elder-Basilisk said:
4. Your PsyWar is more flexible than the fighter.

Who isnt?

Elder-Basilisk said:
5. Despite that flexibility, your PsyWar does not rely upon his companions/items less than the fighter; he relies upon them for different things. (Mostly healing for the amount of damage he takes in most fights and the amount of damage he takes to keep his powers up).

Only for this particular build and only the first incarnation, the later ones either used dorjes or skin of the troll (the latter lowers the overall ac slightly, but still around the same as the fighters so that is all right).

Elder-Basilisk said:
6. A party where a PsyWar replaces the fighter will be heavily challenged by multiple EL=APL fights per day. While the fighter tears through physical opposition short of dragons without sustaining much injury, the PsyWar gets mauled, spends pps to heal himself while wounding them, and hits the top of the red zone for hit points every time. After the fight, he'll probably suck up more healing from the cleric than the fighter.

Right, having roughly the same ac as the fighter, doing more damage per hit, and being able to manage the field with much greater ease causes him to be 'mauled'.

Not likely.

The rest of your comment is equally wrong. This only occurs sometimes and only vs credible threats and only if the psychic warrior doesnt take precautions.

None of which the fighter can do without hindering his ability to do damage.

Elder-Basilisk said:
7. A party where the PsyWar replaces the fighter will be less challenged by single EL>APL fights. The PsyWar blows his whole pp reserve and is better prepared for several eventualities.

The psychic warrior does have the option to dump many pps in hopes of killing things much, much faster than the fighter could possibly hope to.

Elder-Basilisk said:
8. In general, the PsyWar is more likely to get killed than the fighter. However, he's more likely to take something that outclasses him with him.

With the fighters inability to heal, difficulty in movement, inability to see opposing forces and other problems? Not likely.


As for the rest I'll be brief because this is getting even more tiresome.

See invis and being a trog for 30 minutes a day is pretty worthless. For one battle you might have it up. If you give up a round to put them up when you need them then that is a round the psychic warrior is just that much farther ahead.

Also, about ignoring feats and their flexibility generally most of those you have listed just do much for flexibility. Power attack? most of the time it hurts more than helps, there are times when it helps more, it doesnt inrease flexibility of uses by a whole lot but it is a nice option. But it counts for very little flexibility overall. Combat expertise is nice but it makes it harder for you to hit again, cutting into your ability to power attack (so one option hinders/closes another) and usually if you are down to needing it then you are heavily outmatched in all likelyhood. Spring attack and your character simply dont mix usefully, sure you could get a single creature without provoking an aoo but there are lots of ways to do this without the feat. Improved trip is generally considered a broken/overpowered feat, just the kind of thing fighters need to find in order to be useful so it is little wonder most of the fighters in these threads have it. Elusive target is pretty cool, and it definately helps against targets on occasion, but does it really make you better at anything?

Against many magical threats the fighter in your build is in major trouble, the psychic warrior much less so.

As for the astronomically lucky, the fighter needs to drop a large amount into power attack and get several crits. The psychic warrior drops some power points and needs a few crits. But then I meant in a round, any round, not just when you are already up there toe to toe with the dragon (which is not terribly likely to happen anyway), so whenever the opporunity presents itself the psychic warrior can do it, the fighter cannot.

But, simply going by the option I'll check some rough percentages to kill it.
Lets see.. the average damage (including loss from con, but only counted as 2 points instead of 3) is 298.58. This is what roughly happens every time the psychic warrior performs this combo.

Actually, I dont think I will even bother to calculate out the chances of being able to kill it, they arent all that bad considering that the above is with average rolls. Chances of killing the poor dragon much higher than .25%.


When I get some time tonight I'll rewrite up the psychic warrior build. Assuming I dont have to reply to another nearly full page long post ;)
 

I notice scion didnt reply to any of my builds all of which:
Did more damage than the Psi warrior
Took less damage than the Psi warrior

Further more that empathic whatever is broken. If you cant see its broken you should be worried. Its so broken I wonder how noone noticed.

Majere
 

Scion said:
Debatable, you are still in your base form, just a different size.

Unless you would like to say having bulls strength on is not compatable either. As they both change something about the person. Although that is more of a stretch it is still along the same lines.

I certainly understand your position, but when I asked customer service this (in May):

In the Expanded Psionics Handbook, the Power “Form of Doom” says that it can only be used when you are in your base form. Obviously, this would prevent someone from polymorphing into something, taking its base stats as your own, and then further enhancing that form with the power. It also lists a few changes that can be made (claws of the beast, etc.) in spite of this prohibition. What I’m confused on is whether a size changing effect changes your “base form.” Can you use the expansion power while in Form of Doom (or vice versa), or is this prohibited? More generally, can any size changing effect be used with any effect that changes your shape… could a person in troll or solar form use a spell such as righteous might?

they responded with this:

Your base form is your unmodified form. If you polymorph, change size, or change appearance, you are no longer in your base form.
 

Quite frankly, Scion, you'll have to try to be a little more open-minded. You clearly have no interest in actually comparing characters capabilities. All you want to do is chant your "anything you can do I can do better" mantra over and over again. Saying it doesn't make it so. And it doesn't help when you assume a best case scenario for the PsyWar at all times (as I count it you assume the PsyWar overchannels his Hostile Empathic Transfer against the Balor in order to minimize the significance of its SR), miscalculate gold expenditure (the equipment posted for my fighter is about 4.5kgp under the limit--it's only over the limit if you start counting pearls of power for every bit of help you get from party members), and continually change the capabilities of your character (this weapon, that weapon, the other weapon, skin of the defender, boots of speed, whatever), ignore the posted characters (for the record, even if we go with the amulet of natural armor/ring of protection version of your psywar, his AC is 40--notably less than the fighter's unless he uses Form of Doom--and shift the goalposts of the discussion. When it comes down to dragon, we started out assuming that the goal was simply to survive for a couple rounds but when it becomes apparent that the fighter can dodge and survive longer, all of a sudden it's a question of who has the least infinitessimal chance of going out in a blaze of glory by one-round killing the dragon. Even then, I notice that you discount everything that the fighter could do on the basis of "the dragon would be buffed/etc so that wouldn't work" but insist that, somehow, even though you haven't worked out the odds, the PsyWar does an average of 299 points of damage/round to the dragon without saying what buffs and items you're crediting the dragon with. So, not only has the half of the goal that was more difficult for the PsyWar to reach disappeared but the dragon appears to have mysteriously shown up naked to fight the psywar.

Exchanges like this:
Yep, which is exactly what I said. But you said, 'Only the best grapplers have a chance of beating a 28+32+d20 grapple check.' which heavily implies you can do it repeatidly, not just in an incredibly narrow set of circumstances.

But then, dragon boy has a grapple check of d20+58 without any special bonuses.

Still, spending a feat to be able to resist people getting you into grapples is nice. Seems incredibly limited though.
have done little to convince me of your good faith. If you add the numbers together, the fighter's grapple check to resist the dragon is d20+60--slightly better than the dragon's d20+58. Neither that, nor improved grab monsters nor charcters with improved grapple are "incredibly narrow sets of circumstances." If you can't admit it when the fighter does something well, there's no point in continuing the discussion. The fighter does resist grapples well. He resists them in a different manner than the PsyWar--a manner that has both strengths and weaknesses. The strengths are that it is non-magical, deals noticable damage to his enemies and is available throughout his career. The weaknesses are that it doesn't work reliably against the really really good grapplers and that it requires him to hit (which is usually a formality but might go down to as low as 50% vs. the dragon). At 20th level, the PsyWar resists better than the fighter (which I've admitted since the first post on the subject) but this fighter still gets quite high marks for resisting because in most situations, he's practically invulnerable to grapples.

Your consistent failure to address the need for buffing rounds to put up form of doom is also unhelpful. If the PsyWar uses expansion, form of doom, and Psionic Lion's charge as you seem to think is the ultimate backup plan (and, being honest, it is a pretty good one) that needs to be compared to the amount of damage the fighter does in two rounds rather than one--because that's the amout of time it takes the PsyWar to actually do it.

Similarly, statements like this:
Even without dumping them the psychic warrior does more damage on a successful hit, he is simply missing one attack a round so falls behind in damage there. But with form of doom and psionics lions charge against the majority of opponents the fighter does only a fraction of the damage. A small fraction at that.
which you consistently make assume that the PsyWar is consistently using Form of Doom and Psionic Lion's charge. However, you don't seem to take that drain on your pp into account. Since you only outdamage the fighter on full attacks when form of doomed and using psionic lion's charge and you only have the pps to do that once per fight in a few fights per day (unless you settle for using psionic lion's charge unaugmented and forgoe form of doom), this is not a valid comparison. (Not to mention that, for all you talk about blowing the fighter's damage out of the water, actual numbers have never been forthcoming).

The thread and discussion have gone on long enough to convince me that the PsyWar can be an interesting build and that empathic feedback is rather broken. (Equivalent of a 9th level spell--right. It's augmentable to cost the same power points; that's not exactly the same thing.) Other than that, it has also convinced me that you're completely unwilling to consider that the PsyWar might be second best in any regard. (Prediction: this will come back quoted with the reply "because he's not.") It has also convinced me that a 20th level fighter is or at least can be (because there are plenty of ways to screw up a fighter just like there are plenty of ways to screw up a psywar) one tough hombre and that he can stand up to 20th level challenges pretty darn well.

PS. WRT:
You are saying that 20+level is easier than 15+level?

I think that you are useing some funny math
The SRD lists the DC for manifesting a power while grappling or pinned as 20 rather than 20+level. Is it different in the actual X-PsiHB? I would hope it is.
 

E-B, you've done a great job posting a lot of hard numbers and doing a lot of analysis of various scenarios and dangers/weaknesses. Thanks for the education. If nothing else, this thread has proven to me definitively that threads debunking the fighter at high levels are mostly exaggeration. Is the fighter the least versatile class in the game? Quite possibly. He kills stuff, and that's pretty much it. But within that narrow field, he is very, very effective.

Now if I could just convince you to do the same write-up of a paladin. :p
 

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