Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Psionics (from Dreamscarred)

[Angellis_ater]

Hi Johnnype!

First of all, very nice to have you aboard on this project!

Great point mentioning tha psionic NPCs should be a little more limited in their power point expenditure and it is an issue we will (now) look into and take care of. These small things is why I love an open design, where one comment can change how we as designers think and look at things.

We will indeed have variant themes available in a specific "Alternities" chapter which details alternate rules, variant themes and stuff like that.

The Psionic Rogue is nice, but unfortunately not Open, which means we cannot use it.

DSP has embraced the Mindscape system from Hyperconscious and we included it in Untapped Potential, for example.

If you want a place to start, I would either suggest getting Untapped Potential, Mind Unveiled: Morphean and Mind Unveiled: Mind Blade Feats (which turns the Soulknife into a featchain). On the other hand, if you want more of our stuff for less money, go with the 360 page bundle & the Mind Unveiled book and Third Dawn. That gets you almost all of our stuff for a little over 50$ (if I counted it right!).

Thankyou for showing an interest in our material!

 

[Angellis_ater]

So far the discussions have yielded this:

* Each class should have atleast two different "builds" which change the flavor and feel of a class a little.
* Each class needs a capstone ability of some form.
* Most classes need a little expansion to cover "dead levels".
* The Soulknife might become a Psychic Warrior "build" in the form of a feat-tree rather than a class by itself.
* We will offer alternate rules for "Power Points per Encounter" for those who prefer this form of balancing. The alternate chapter will most probably also include a Soulknife class for those who want to use it, information and suggestions on how to re-theme psionics.
* We will make sure to adjust the problematic powers and we'll go over how for example Experience Costs are handled.

Anyone else have suggestions?

 

[Mark Chance]

The Psionic Rogue is nice, but unfortunately not Open, which means we cannot use it.

I wrote up a psychic thief for FFG's Path of Shadow which is OGC. It's 3.0, though, so I don't how useful it would be.

I also like the idea of the soulknife being turned into a feat chain rather than leaving it as a stand-alone class.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Feat chain would be better with Pathfinder due to the larger number of feats you get, too.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Although the Soulknife is my favorite psionic class and I'm happy to run it as-is, I'm not going to argue that it couldn't be better...at least in part due to some badly drafted RAW rulings.

Apologies in advance if you've already addressed any of this in your previous product (which I don't own).

In no particular order, and not mutually exclusive or inclusive, I think:

1) The RAW ruling that the mindblade reverts to its base state after it dematerializes (for whatever reason) is a huge hinderance.

2) Dragon #348 had Mindblade- shape feats and a Practiced Manifester feat. The reshaping feats were superior to the ones in CompPsi.

3) The Knife to the Soul ability is cool, but it is VERY delayed. It might be better as a Feat that scales up over time.

4) The Blade Manifester PrCl from Hyperconscious is, in some ways, what the Soulknife should be as a Base class. The blade should be his quintessential power, but being able to manifest a handful of powers- less than a PsyWar- or perhaps as only a few additional Psi-like abilities would round the class out.

5) The Soulknife as Feat tree is a good idea. So would a stand alone Mindblade psionic power. In fact, there is no reason all 4 paths to accessing a mindblade- Base class, PrCl, Feat tree or Power- couldn't coexist in the same system, as long as they had distinctly different levels of potency.

And IMHO, virtually everything said of the Soulknife could be said of Kineticists of various energy types.

 

[Shazman]

I agree with most of what has been said about psionics. I like psionics, and I love Pathfinder. I do have some concerns about the balance of psionics in 3.5. I have witnessed or heard about some broken combinations using the XPH (psychic warrior with expansion and monkey grip or psions throwing most of their power points into nova energy rays that blast everthing to bits). I think that you should look at closing some loopholes that have come about as a result of using power points to go nova or unbalanced powers. I personally liked the 3.0 version of soulknives. Make them a prestige class with a psychic assassin theme. Barring that, I would give them a good BAB to balance them with the other base classes.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I have witnessed or heard about some broken combinations using the XPH (psychic warrior with expansion and monkey grip or psions throwing most of their power points into nova energy rays that blast everthing to bits).

The PsyWar w/Expansion & Monkey Grip isn't broken, its effective.

And Psions who go nova can find themselves in a lot of trouble when the DM doesn't let the party rest just because he's out of power points.

(We really don't have a 15 minute day problem in our group...)

Barring that, I would give them a good BAB to balance them with the other base classes.

Personally, I never liked that solution.

Sure, the Soulknife is a melee class, but to me, its a skirmisher, kind of like the Monk. (And yes, I know lots of people think the Monk needs a full BAB, too.)

Giving it a full BAB will just make even more people think that its supposed to be a front-line, stand-in-front and bash away type warrior.

 

[TroyXavier]

Note to self, check out Dreamscarred Press stuff. Sounds like your thing.

Anyways, Psionics has always been a love of mine, and I agree that while it's really good, there is need for improvements especially for the poor Soulknife (the class I so wanna like but so underperforms). I would also like to see some good presitge classes. Too often it was too big a trade off of manifesting levels for abilities that were good but not worth hampering your progression as a manifester. Other than that, I agree that some form of psychic rogue that's better than a lurk would be really nice as well.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Sure, the Soulknife is a melee class, but to me, its a skirmisher, kind of like the Monk. (And yes, I know lots of people think the Monk needs a full BAB, too.)

Giving it a full BAB will just make even more people think that its supposed to be a front-line, stand-in-front and bash away type warrior.

I dunno. When your whole contribution to the party is hitting things with a light sabre (or thereabouts), I would imagine that they should be at least equal best at, well, hitting things. Full BAB makes a lot of sense to me. If the Monk didn't have flurry of blows (which, so the theory goes, provides compensation for only medium BAB by way of more chances to hit) what use would they be? It can be (and often has been) argued that they are were not much use even so, but that's a whole 'nother thread (or um, a thousand threads, more like it).

 

[Shazman]

The PsyWar w/Expansion & Monkey Grip isn't broken, its effective.

And Psions who go nova can find themselves in a lot of trouble when the DM doesn't let the party rest just because he's out of power points.

(We really don't have a 15 minute day problem in our group...)


Personally, I never liked that solution.

Sure, the Soulknife is a melee class, but to me, its a skirmisher, kind of like the Monk. (And yes, I know lots of people think the Monk needs a full BAB, too.)

Giving it a full BAB will just make even more people think that its supposed to be a front-line, stand-in-front and bash away type warrior.

You may call expansion + monkey grip effective, but I have seen it in action, and it can become quite ludicrous. A huge psychic warrior wielding a greatsword the size of an aircraft carrier dominates combat and is really quite silly when you think about it. Expansion should be much more limited than it was in 3.5.