Psion power balance questions

Zimbel, I'm only just barely familiar with psionics, but I would like to comment on one point:
Scion said:
Several people here have stated things which are blatantly wrong, and other things which are highly misleading. Sending a person to people who not only know what they are talking about but are also willing to give a fair shake to opposition is the best thing in my mind.
It's been my experience over the years on these boards that neither Karinsdad nor Elder-Basilisk are the type of poster to state erroneous or misleading information, or speak about what they do not know. Both of them are extremely capable analysts with regards to a myriad aspects of the game. If I had to make a list of folks I'd trust on these boards to give me objective info on some aspect of the game I knew nothing about, they'd be on it.

Just wanted to give you some perspective, since by your post-count I'm not sure how often you read the boards. ;)
 

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This seems like a perfect time to remind folks that they shouldn't get snarky. It's fine to disagree with another person's interpretation of the rules, but as soon as you start to get personal (accusing them of posting deliberately misleading information, or bringing personalities into the equation) then you've crossed the line. I'd appreciate it if discussions focus on actual rules, not on who said what and whether you happen to like them or not. Remember, if you start being rude or insulting to people (calling their opinions "nonsense", for instance), you're just derailing the conversation for everyone.

Thanks!
 

My experiences with psionics:

- We've had no problems whatsoever with time stop or temporal aceleration and its ilk. Since you can't actually hurt someone else while time is stopped, I've found that these are primarily useful for buffing or healing. That's okay for me. Zimbel, are you playing that other creatures are affected by your spells when you're time stopped?

- I agree that the problem with Metamorphosis is in the feat, not the power. It hasn't come up in my game as a must-have, though, so I haven't had to make a decision about house ruling it.

- Fission hasn't proven to be a problem for its level. Schism either, for that matter.

- Timeless Body has come across as fairly weak. With only a one round duration, it's basically a purely defensive "Auggh! I don't want to die!" power that has to be activated every round as a standard action.

- My psi warrior has Empathic Transfer, Hostile. It's a fun power to have that hasn't turned out to be unbalancing; the fact that you have to get hurt to be useful has led to some interesting decisions in balancing armor and combat healing amidst the group. There's some odd augmentation weirdness, though, relating to how many hit points you get back when you use it in a 20' radius. Also note that the augmented burst affects allies, too.

- Control Flames is a non-issue for us; requiring concentration prohibits other fun actions.

- Energy Missile - In my opinion, this is simply too powerful even unaugmented. We reduced the number of missiles from 5 to 3, and adjusted the augmentation DC to be consistent with other powers. It seems balanced with these changes.

- Affinity Field hasn't proven useful enough to us to make a difference one way or another.

- The xp cost from Psychic Chirugery has dissuaded anyone from transferring powers. It falls under the category of "powers that are cool, but not useful enough to actually select."

ADDITIONAL CHANGES WE'VE MADE

- We have also changed dispel magic to have a "normal" effect on par with the arcane and divine spells.

- Anywhere that they made the "+1pp = +1 to DC" typo, we've changed that to "+2pp = +1 DC."

- We make sure that people track whether or not they have psionic focus. This can be incredibly important.

- We've toned down the feats power penetration and greater power penetration so that they're on par with arcane equivalents.

- There is a psionic item that causes all powers to cost -1 pp. This isn't really an issue, except that it affects what powers can be successfully altered with metapsionic feats! We've agreed that this item won't let the psion use a meta-psionic feat on a power earlier than their level would normally allow.

- Astral constructs haven't proven to be too strong for us, but it's very important to note that unlike summoned creatures, these guys aren't hedged out by prot. evil spells. That's a big change.

- I agree that ego whip can be very powerful when augmented. On the other hand, that isn't really a problem; augmented, it seems no more powerful to me than any other power of its equivalent level.

- I require that if psychic reformation is used, it can't be one of the powers changed. That means that if it is used to qualify for a prestige class, it becomes less useful thereafter. Truth be told, I haven't had any problerms with it either way.
 
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Staffan said:
No can do. The AoE of the <telekinetic> sphere is 1-foot diameter per level. That means that the sphere has a minimum diameter of 15 ft ...
Really?

Hmmm. That would severely limit it....in a good way, at least for the DM. Anyone care to confirm this with some rules?
 

Does not say "up to"


Telekinetic Sphere, Psionic
Psychokinesis [Force]
Level: Kineticist 8
Display: Material
Manifesting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect: 1-ft.-diameter/level sphere, centered around creatures or objects
Duration: 1 min./level (D)
Saving Throw: Reflex negates (object)
Power Resistance: Yes (object)
Power Points: 15

As the telekinetic sphere spell, except as noted here.




Also, it is a sphere....so it rolls. Any combat on a hill or incline... Or a decent Bull Rush should have some effect, or any push....
 

Coredump said:
Also, it is a sphere....so it rolls. Any combat on a hill or incline... Or a decent Bull Rush should have some effect, or any push....

No, it does not roll. It is based on Resilient Sphere which is immoble. Only by concentrating can the caster move it. Nobody else can move it.
 

Piratecat said:
My experiences with psionics:
Yeah, but what do YOU know? It's not like you've written any psi-based adventures or anything :p
- Energy Missile - In my opinion, this is simply too powerful even unaugmented. We reduced the number of missiles from 5 to 3, and adjusted the augmentation DC to be consistent with other powers. It seems balanced with these changes.
My house rule is that you get one target to start with, but that the power can be augmented by 2 PP per additional target (which don't increase the save DC). So a 10th level kineticist could do 10d6 to one target, 8d6 to two, 6d6 to three, or 4d6 to four. The save DC has been fixed too, of course.

- We have also changed dispel magic to have a "normal" effect on par with the arcane and divine spells.
That's another one I've house-ruled. I've made the "+2 per PP" affect the cap, not the roll itself. So unless you're 11th level, there's no point in augmenting dispel psionics.
 

KarinsDad said:
No, it does not roll. It is based on Resilient Sphere which is immoble. Only by concentrating can the caster move it. Nobody else can move it.
Right.

Still, it doesn't say you can have any radius....and I think that's the ruling problem we've had. Thanks, guys!
 

Elder-Basilisk said:
What ways is horrid wilting insanely better again? Sure, it's non-elemental damage, but it's a single save type and even if you're facing demons who can resist most of those energy types, a 15pp fire missile will still do more damage than a clvl 15 horrid wilting--assuming that the save DCs were equal which they aren't. I'm not seeing even "measurably better' here, let alone insanely better.
More targets, primarily - a lot more targets (any number of creatures within 60' of each other). I'ts wonderful against minor creatures, since like Energy Missile, you can miss your allies, and evasion isn't a problem. It also gets around many immunities- and the ones it dosen't are usually pretty easy to discern.
 

Piratecat said:
- We've had no problems whatsoever with time stop or temporal aceleration and its ilk. Since you can't actually hurt someone else while time is stopped, I've found that these are primarily useful for buffing or healing. That's okay for me. Zimbel, are you playing that other creatures are affected by your spells when you're time stopped?
Technically, they're affected at the end of the time stop (in 3.0). Specifically, the Epic-level handbook has text on (how to limit) Time stop which made that crystal clear (for 3.0).

I've never used Time Stop in 3.5. It does look to me like temporal aceleration's main problem would be summoning a bunch of creatures, and some battlefield-scale effects, which I'm less worried about than laying down 80d6+ in 1 round at LV 18.
 

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