Playing a Psionic

[wlmartin]

On paper the Psionic characters seem a lot stronger.
You have powers that you can "beef up" and make Encounter powers on a whim. This means that you don't need to become married to 1 Encounter Power when you level and you can switch your tactics around as the situation calls for it.

Now... I have yet to play a Psionic in 4e and wanted some feedback from those that have.

Is the augmentable power point situation better than having Encounter Powers?

Do you feel that a Full Augment (2 pp) adequately replaces an Encounter Power or perhaps is it too powerful?

Is there something that is missing from your gameplay that you enjoy with a non-Psionic Character?

What is your overall impression of playing a Psionic Character (any tips, tricks?)

Thank you for your assistance

 

[Mummolus]

I actively play both a battlemind and an ardent, and absolutely love them both. If/when I get involved in another campaign, I look forward to playing a psion.

My only issue with the way psionics work in 4E is that they don't always mesh well with other mechanics. Power swaps can be tricky to do properly, for example. That aside, they're a pretty reasonably balanced and flavorful option.

 

[DracoSuave]

Power swap is tricky.... but they have their own versions of it, both into and out of the power swap. Your back is covered in that regard.

I like the telekinetic myself. I have an affinity for positional controllers, and the psion delivered quite nicely. Forceful Push just might be one of my favorite class features.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Overall I like the psionic characters, even though multiclassing is a bit of a headache.
Multiclassing is important to me in 4E and any class that cannot do so does not interest me much.

They are versatile characters and that makes them fun for me, even though remembering 3 powers for each power is a bit annoying at times.

Sometimes you get a bit of a headscratching moment at some augments, where it jsut does not seem to fit the rest of the power.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The problem with Psionic classes is that they are simply broken at Paragon and especially Epic. A 2PP Heroic power is effectively an At Will at Epic. And some of them treated as At Wills are sick (there's one that does -Cha to your target's to hit for a Psion).

 

[Dice4Hire]

The problem with Psionic classes is that they are simply broken at Paragon and especially Epic. A 2PP Heroic power is effectively an At Will at Epic. And some of them treated as At Wills are sick (there's one that does -Cha to your target's to hit for a Psion).

Yes this is very true.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I've DMed for a psionic PC. (I use lots of psionic NPCs, but they use monster rules.)

On paper the Psionic characters seem a lot stronger.
You have powers that you can "beef up" and make Encounter powers on a whim. This means that you don't need to become married to 1 Encounter Power when you level and you can switch your tactics around as the situation calls for it.

Now... I have yet to play a Psionic in 4e and wanted some feedback from those that have.

Is the augmentable power point situation better than having Encounter Powers?

Not really. You do have a little bit more flexibility, but I haven't seen it be that useful. My psion player has not particularly optimized his PC, making this more obscure/hard to measure.

A lot of augments aren't all that good, but maybe that's a function of the powers he chose.

There's at least one standout power, Dishearten. It's like the bard's Vicious Mockery, but flat-out better without any augmentation whatsoever. That's probably more of a power issue than a class issue though (eg one power is overpowered, and/or one is underpowered).

Do you feel that a Full Augment (2 pp) adequately replaces an Encounter Power or perhaps is it too powerful?

I thought 2 PP was for a daily-equivalent. I'm not sure. He gets daily powers as well as full augments. He seems to run out of PP pretty fast though, but then other PCs run out of encounter powers pretty fast too.

Is there something that is missing from your gameplay that you enjoy with a non-Psionic Character?

What is your overall impression of playing a Psionic Character (any tips, tricks?)

In a way, I'm actually disappointed. There isn't enough "range" of powers. Being a telepath is particularly disappointing; all kinds of cool powers are missing. IMO, there needs to be more powers that have nasty control effects but do no damage (or maybe just Charisma or Wisdom bonus for damage).

I also think the psion class should have used Will rather than Int for most of its powers.

 

[tiornys]

Where's the "Played one, mixed feelings" button? Because that's where I am. There are aspects of the psionic system that I really like. The in-combat flexibility can create a different and enjoyable tactical dynamic. However, there are also aspects that I strongly dislike, namely the fact that some low-level augments are overpowered combined with the poor power level scaling at higher levels creates a strong incentive to keep the same powers throughout the lifetime of the character.

To get a bit more abstract, I like the design principles behind the psionic system, but I dislike the implementation. Low level powers need to avoid mechanics that inherently scale with level (such as applying stat mods to d20 rolls). Paragon level powers should have slightly stronger Augment 1 abilities than heroic tier powers, and significantly stronger Augment 4 abilities than the heroic Augment 2 abilities. Epic tier powers should conform to normal at-will scaling (2 dice of damage when unaugmented), should have Augment 2 abilities that are slightly stronger than the heroic tier Augment 2 abilities, and Augment 6 abilities that are significantly stronger than the paragon tier Augment 4 abilities.

Sadly, none of these things hold true in the current implementation.

t~

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The only Psionic PC I've played thus far is a Warlock MCed into Psion, and I'm liking him. The reason for the MC was mainly RP- I needed a particular skill- but for that, the MC feats are generally a better deal than the Skill Training feat...and it fit with his background.

Anywho...I've really enjoyed the PC. The psionic powers- even the ones I can't augment- are nice. My sole complaint about the character has been the MC system itself...burning all those Power Swap Feats in particular.

I even did a Hybrid version of the PC, which is in some ways better, but is also worse in many ways.

Long story short: I'd play a Psionic PC again, no question.

 

[Spatula]

To echo tiornys, I think the main issue with the psionic classes is that the powers don't really get better as you level (with a few exceptions). With the other classes, you dump your low-level encounters for new ones which are unequivocally better (in the majority of cases). With the higher-level psionic at-wills, it seems more like they have narrower applications than the level 1's, and they cost more to augment. While the higher-level powers do slightly more damage when augmented, none of the PP classes are strikers, so...