Psion power balance questions

[Elder-Basilisk]

Try it from this angle: You are a DM, and have a Kineticist as a player. For every combat he puts up Telekinetic Sphere, and then uses Burrowing power to blast the bad guys with impunity. How do you challenge him? (Challenging him the same way each and every encounter is too boring to contemplate. )

Well, it does sound like a broken combo, but, off the top of my head:

With a called outsider, teleport without error inside the sphere and beat the snot out of the psion who has no room to retreat.

With a monk, abundant step inside the sphere and do likewise.

With a mage, put up a globe of invulnerability and watch it stop all the spells that are low enough level to use burrowing power on. Or glitterdust the sphere. (Let's see you see through that, psion).

With anything else, paste the rest of the party, take their items and leave. Yeah, you're good at surviving Kineticist. But it's not so impressive when the rest of the party dies because you're contributing at four or five levels lower than your character level.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

In other news, if you go to a WoD board, they'll be happy to tell you the many ways that Storyteller is superior to D&D, if you go to democratic underground, they'll give you lots of explanations of why the world will end if you don't vote democrat and if you go to the GOP website, they'll give you good reasons why you should vote republican.

There is at least some advantage to asking questions like this in a forum that isn't dedicated to psionics fans: you can get the perspective of people who are not as enthusiastic about the ruleset.

Given the amount of incorrect, or at least misleading, information that is in this thread I would suggest that you also go to the psionics boards and ask them for their opinion about these things along with any others you may think of:

Psionics

They are generally very good about giving balance reasons and decent explanations about how psionics fits into a game.

Likely you would be able to get a lot of responses from people with 'much' more personal experience.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Put bluntly: The CRs of Astral Construct are too low. Their ACs are too good, their attack routines are too good, their special abilities are too good.

With respect to raw offense and raw defense those Astral Constucts look significantly better than anything my Druid can do with Augment Summoning. We are talking about the vanilla constructs. A Shaper can get feats to make them even better.

 

[Scion]

Come on basalisk, unless you think that people should not go to sources where people actually know what they are talking about then you are merely blowing hot air where it shouldnt go.

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.


If you want information about the space program you dont go to disney world and ask random people. Sure, you might wind up getting a good response now and then, but mostly it will be worse than useless.


So again, to Zimbel, I would suggest you go there and ask your questions as well. You will get some answers here, you will get some other answers there. Of the two I would trust the psionics board 'much' more than several of the posters here on psionic matters. They simply know more about the system and will be able to show you in many more ways what the potential problems may be and what the overeactions are.

 

[Nail]

First: Thanks for taking on the problem, E-B. I appreciate it.

With a called outsider, teleport without error inside the sphere and beat the snot out of the psion who has no room to retreat.

He makes the sphere only big enough for himself. No room to teleport into.

Or glitterdust the sphere. (Let's see you see through that, psion).

Right. Obfuscation is really the best way to contain the psion.

With anything else, paste the rest of the party, take their items and leave. Yeah, you're good at surviving Kineticist. But it's not so impressive when the rest of the party dies because you're contributing at four or five levels lower than your character level.

T That's more or less what I'm left with. The problem is he's still able to be amazingly effective, so the bad guys can't simply ignore him.

 

[Nail]

Given the amount of incorrect, or at least misleading, information that is in this thread ....

Nice. (chuckles)

 

[Zimbel]

With a mage, put up a globe of invulnerability and watch it stop all the spells that are low enough level to use burrowing power on. Or glitterdust the sphere. (Let's see you see through that, psion).

With anything else, paste the rest of the party, take their items and leave. Yeah, you're good at surviving Kineticist. But it's not so impressive when the rest of the party dies because you're contributing at four or five levels lower than your character level.

Burrowing Power [Metapsionic]

Your powers sometimes bypass barriers.
Benefit

To use this feat, you must expend your psionic focus. You can attempt to manifest your powers against targets that are sheltered behind a wall or force effect. Your power briefly skips through the Astral Plane to bypass the barrier.

The strength and thickness of the barrier determine your chance of success. To successfully bypass the barrier with your power, you make a Psicraft check against a DC equal to 10 + the hardness of the barrier + 1 per foot of thickness (minimum 1). Assign a hardness of 20 to barriers without a hardness rating, such as force effects (or a wall of ectoplasm). Force walls or walls of ectoplasm are assumed to have less than 1 foot of thickness unless noted otherwise.

If a power requires line of sight (which includes most powers that affect a target or targets instead of an area), you cannot manifest it as a burrowing power unless you can somehow see the target, such as with clairvoyant sense.

Using this feat increases the power point cost of the power by 2. The power’s total cost cannot exceed your manifester level.

Looks like 2 levels to me, unless you're heavily costing an action foe invoking the power.

 

[KarinsDad]

Try it from this angle: You are a DM, and have a Kineticist as a player. For every combat he puts up Telekinetic Sphere, and then uses Burrowing power to blast the bad guys with impunity. How do you challenge him? (Challenging him the same way each and every encounter is too boring to contemplate. )

I assume by this that the Kineticist is in the Sphere.

1) If so, put a Wall spell around him, specifically a wall spell that is opaque.

Also, do not allow his Sphere to move through other objects. Adjudicate that it does not have enough force to do so. For example, state that he cannot move it through a Wall of Ice, even though Wall of Ice allows creatures to move through it. Granted, he could still blast the wall, but that takes time.

2) Have the enemies run away to fight another time. Telekinetic Sphere only lasts one minute per level.

3) Have an enemy with a Ring of Spell Turning or the Spell Turning spell up. The power going back at him is still Burrowing. hehehe

4) Have an enemy counterspell the Sphere before he gets it up.

5) Have an enemy counterspell (typically with Dispel Magic) anything he attempts to manifest.

6) Use Dispel Magic / Greater Dispel Magic against the Sphere.

7) Obscuring Mist. Remember, he must concentrate in order to move the Sphere out of the mist. He cannot move and attack in the same round.

8) Solid Fog.

9) Here's a fun one: Cast Transmute Rock to Mud against a cavern ceiling above him after he puts up the Sphere. Then cast Quicken Dispel Magic (or have someone else cast Dispel Magic) to harden the mud back to stone. hehehe

10) Drop a flying swarm on the sphere. Rule that the Swarm is constantly readying an action to move where the sphere does in its attempt to get to the creature inside and that the swarm gives partial or total concealment to those outside the swarm. This is heavy handed, but ...

11) Wizard and Fighter gang up on him. Wizard has Antimagic Field up.

12) Dimension Door or Teleport an incorporeal undead into the Sphere.

13) Dimension Door or Teleport a Wizard with Delay Poison on him. Have him cast Cloudkill inside the Sphere. This requires DM justification to allow two corporeal characters in the same square.

14) Attack him with a Beholder.

15) Drop a Swarm on him before he casts the Sphere.

16) Attack him with Gaze creatures.

17) Attack the party with Greater Invisible or naturally invisible creatures. Burrowing Power does not allow line of sight powers unless you can see the opponent.


Remember, your psion has to be at least 15th level to be doing this. You are justified at this level in sending powerful spellcasting enemies at the party.

 

[KarinsDad]

Come on basalisk, unless you think that people should not go to sources where people actually know what they are talking about then you are merely blowing hot air where it shouldnt go.

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.

Pretty bold claims.

List 5 such misleading or incorrect statements here.

 

[Zimbel]

Try it from this angle: You are a DM, and have a Kineticist as a player. For every combat he puts up Telekinetic Sphere, and then uses Burrowing power to blast the bad guys with impunity. How do you challenge him? (Challenging him the same way each and every encounter is too boring to contemplate. )

Seriously?
1) The telekinetic Sphere is presumably at least large enough for the PC's facing, otherwise, I'd give the PC penalties. Given that (and that a number of medium creatures can grapple in 1 square), I'd let a (Psion's size) or smaller creature Teleport/ Dimension Door in. Even if the PC was willing to be immobile to make it smaller, unless the PC's sphere-shaped, I'd let a smaller creature in.
2) Use a Psion/Wilder with the feat Burrowing Power.
3) Rod of Cancellation.
4) Have a really big creature grab the Sphere (it's nearly weightless, after all) and teleport/plane shift out of there, with the sphere in their possesion, preferably to a hunting ground that the creature knows well. Have the creature leave until the druation runs out, and then some back and attack. Rinse and repeat as needed.
5) Create a spell that allows a creature to move through force effects - or even just the first force effect during the duration.
6) A creature with high escape artist- like +115 (DC 120 to get into it by the Epic SRD)
7) Put the PCs in a plane which limits force effects - or psionic effects.
8) Put the PCs in a plane without access to the Astral Plane (Burrowing Power requires the Astral Plane).
9) Dimension Lock (this should prevent Burrowing power, although it isn't explicitly stated).
10) Surround the Psion with Wall -type effects (like Prismatic Wall?)
11) Use Prismatic Sphere.