Opinions of Expanded Psi-handbook

Caspian Marqine

First Post
Glancing over my copy of the expanded psi-handbook, I was curious as to what people thought about the revisions. My interests lie towards the two fighting classes, the soulknife and the psychic warrior.

With the psychic warrior I was under the understanding that some people thought it has gotten depowered quite a bit, though from what I've read it seems to do okay still, thought it could use some more power points.

The soulknife I thought it was cool, though not giving it med+heavy armor proficiencies seems to put it in the secondary fighter position (er, can we talk about what was in the playtest version yet?)


Jonathan
 

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Glancing over my copy of the expanded psi-handbook, I was curious as to what people thought about the revisions. My interests lie towards the two fighting classes, the soulknife and the psychic warrior.

With the psychic warrior I was under the understanding that some people thought it has gotten depowered quite a bit, though from what I've read it seems to do okay still, thought it could use some more power points.

The focus changed from feats to powers. However, a lot of the old feats don't cost power points anymore, instead costing focus. In the end you'll save a heap of power points, but...

Then come the powers. There are more of them, and many are more powerful (like psionic lion's charge). Some, like vigor, are also a lot more expensive than they used to be. (In 3.0, you could get 18 hp for 1 power point, now you can only get 5... but you can also get more temp hit points per level than in 3.0) A lot of others don't last as long either, and some (like offensive prescience) augment, which usually makes things more powerful but in this case makes things more expensive, too.

The end result is that you get more power points and you'll be spending more, too. I think a lot of people look at the buffs and think they have to have them all up. With their durations that's not likely to happen - you probably won't have more than 2 rounds to buff, so just grab the two best buffs that fit your concept.

Note that animal affinity and form of doom effectively let you put them multiple buffs in one round, and since inertial barrier lasts a good while... look to those first.

The soulknife I thought it was cool, though not giving it med+heavy armor proficiencies seems to put it in the secondary fighter position

That's not necessarily a bad thing... I think he's about as strong as a ranger in combat, which isn't surprising since he gets good skills. And as soon as he gets Knife to the Soul...

(er, can we talk about what was in the playtest version yet?)

I think you can in two years. :)
 


I for one loved the changes to the fighting classes -
I thought the 3.0 PsiWarrior unplayable - few psp, bad powers and sucky feats - come on 1 psp for a 1 strike +1d4 dmg with a weapon bah.
I supposed if you kept mostly to fighter feats with only 1 or 2 psionic ones you would have been okay.

The problem with the soul knife 3.0 was you had to be a 6th lvl psionic warrior or multiclass to get the psps - either you missed the chance to specalize or got stuck with a bad BAB and poor hp from multiclassing, just to become a melee combat thief type.

The 3.5 psi warrior has so many good buffs he will run through his psp quickly and has two valid paths for taking feats - psionic focus feats or lots on natural talent and good powers. Either way take psionic body for great HP

My problem with the new soulknife is that he is a one trick pony - he has a great melee weapon, (or short thrown) the older version had all the levels of psionic powers to fall back on, the new guy just has a sword.
 

Yeah, I don't have the book in frotn of me, but my take overall was that it made the psionics material and classes more playable and interesting. I feel that a psionic character can hold its own a bit more, now, and the overall treatment is more satisfactory.
 

Evilhalfling said:
My problem with the new soulknife is that he is a one trick pony - he has a great melee weapon, (or short thrown) the older version had all the levels of psionic powers to fall back on, the new guy just has a sword.

Long thrown, actually-the mindblade has the same range as a javelin, the longest-range thrown weapon in the core rules.
 

My opinions on the psi classes:

Psion: Surprisingly similiar to the psion I was working on, so I like it.

Psychic warrior: There is no reason to give a class poor skills and 2 SP per level unless they have either full 9 levels of casting, or fighter BaB. NONE. Psychic warrior deserves more skills, or fighter BaB. (Not both, but one or the other.)

Soulknife: Terrible. Awesome major cool idea, lousy execution. Knife to the soul is useful, but really, there's not a lot going for this class. It is a bit of a one trick pony, you're stuck with the Spring attack way of fighting, because the way the blade charging ability works, you're pretty much prevented from doing any full attacks anyway. Multiple throw is a waste of an ability, since it's not going to be used, you're just going to use a move to charge, then throw. No multiple blades will be thrown at any time.

Wilder: I despise using percentiles to determine things, especially when there's no skill to adjust it. I am working with a frined to transfer the percentile chance of enervation to charisma checks, still working on the DC. Also, I don't like penalties that don't scale, or in this case, de-scale. A 20th level wilder loses 20 points whether he surges for 6 points, or if he surges for 1 point. you don't make a 20th level fighter take -20 to hit for +1 worth of power attack. Other than that, I really like this class. It doesn't do much, but it does it well.

PrCs:

Cerebremancer: Okay, if a bit bland.

Elocator: Pretty snazzy, I very much approve.

Fist of Zuoken: Again, a bit bland, but still superior to going monk/psychic warrior, you don't have to lose out on monk abilities, and you get the same powers with a lot more points than you would with 10 levels of Psywarr. Fewer feats though.

Illithid slayer: Makes Eldritch Knight look like a pansie. Why does it allow non-manifesters in, and give them nothing? I hate that. If you're going to screw over non manifesters like that, don't let them in the freaking class. If you want non manifesters in the class, give them something.

Metamind: You lose out on 148 points to get into this so called "Power to Burn" class. You gain about 35 points worht of free manifester levels, counting in the free cognisance crystal. The font of Power ability is mighty, but you have to spend 115 points in that minute every day, or else you could have just been a psion, have more points, augment your abilities higher, and have 9th level powers. In short, it sucks.

Uncarnate: It's not too bad, I recomend you allow items to be made with the ghost touch ability as it is written in Savage Species though, that cap on magic items when you go uncarnate is pretty lame. Other than that, it's pretty good.

Pyrokineticist. I like this class. It's not made for any real manifester, but I can see a few people taking wild talent or being a naturally psionic race to take this class. I like the artwork too.

Thrallherd: Good villain class. Not so good hero class, unless you're playing in an evil, or at least morally ambiguous campaign, as such, I've house ruled in "Non good alignment" as a prerequisite. My opinion, don't jump me defending this class, I don't really care to hear it.

War Mind: I like this one too. I don't like that empty 3rd level myself, but that's just me. All melee related PrCs should be this good, I think, too many are crap.

As for the psiinic mechanics, I really like the way they work. I will make one comment: It's funny how psions went from being the worst direct damage dealers, to the best in 3E. (They have finally topped Cleric and Druid for nuking ability, the poor wizard has, unfortunately, been irevokable castrated when doing direct damage without 3.0 haste, it's just not worth it at higher levels without it.)
 
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The psion and the psychic warrior work for me. The biggest problem with the update is that aspect that WotC doesn't seem worry about enough: backwards compatability. Most importantly, the shift to Int as the sole manifesting stat. Made many characters untenable or impossible, has me wondering how to handle things like the thoughtforms in Monster of the Mind, etc.

The wilder, just from reading the book, seems weak. At levels where they can really crank up powers, it seems like they have too much of a chance to stun themselves and lose a big chunk of power points. They come off a little weak in my eye.

Soul knife I don't like and don't see how it broad enough to justify a core class. I'll chalk this up to the 3.5e era design team annoying tendency to make core classes at the drop of a hat. This won't be making it into my game.

Other than that, I like the way they tweaked the powers and specialities. Seems to work well in most cases.
 
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I found the old psychic warrior very well balanced. It's biggest flaw was that it didn't have enough cool powers to choose from, so one psychic warrior build looked very much like the next.

Count Arioch the 28t said:
Wilder: I despise using percentiles to determine things, especially when there's no skill to adjust it.

That's why it's a percentage. A deliberate design decision in 3e is that rolls that's can't be modified by skills et al (like concealment) would be percentile, and rolls that could be modified would be d20.
 

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