Psionic Attack question

[Dragonjester]

In my campaign there is a psion rogue. Psions are fairly rare on this world, but not unheard. So he's not in a position where he would be in danger because of his abilities, from the general populace.

When faced with a large group of opponents (usually non-psionic)his favorite tactic is to mind blast then sneak attack those that are stunned. As far as I can see it's an excellent, though frustrating, tactic. My question is this: are creatures with 1 intelligence affected by psionic attacks? As far as I can tell they are, but I just want to be sure that he's using the powers correctly.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I believe there are some targets immune to stunning (undead, I think..).

Be sure he pays the appropriate cost for mind blast (its a quite costly "power", I believe 6 powerpoints).

The best thing to do is: Check the rulebook yourself - it is difficult to say if or what you make wrong...

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[Wolf72]

iirc it's (but don't quite me either )9 pp (even more expensive!) ... it sounds like a great plan ... like the above post, use undead creatures (even immune to sneak attack) ... I believe vermin are immune as well ...

 

[Arnix]

I would say that if a creature is immune to sneak attack, then it is most likely immune to stunning attacks. Make a house rule on things that seem strange. Most 1 int creatures are animals/pests/etc, thus vulnerable to stunning attacks. Undead and constructs are immune. I believe that some demons are immune as well, but don't quote me on that.


It is 9pp btw. My psionic warrior uses it once per day, sometimes. I think one game I used it 2 times. It is very expensive given the limited number of pp that a psywar has. A psion could have a good bit more, depending on feats.

Arnix (tm)

 

[Someone]

I was fairly sure that attack modes were mind-affecting effects, but surprisingly there´s nothing in the book that says that. So only enemies that are specifically inmune to stunning -like undead and constructs- are inmune to that tactic.

 

[Zirnike]

The next time your psionic rogue attacks a bunch of goblins, have a Blue (or 2) in the group. Wasting the 9 points on the Blast will come back to bite them in the tail when the psionic battle starts off. There'll be no time for the sneak attacks, as the other battle will take a little bit of time.

If you don't want to do that (i.e. want to keep psionics very rare), how about making some semi-rare crystal assist in blocking mental psionics? Or mages probably have heard of this power and instituted defenses. How about a magic item granting a bonus to mind effecting effects?

Or alternately, maybe he picked up a psionic draining disease. Or slept near a brain mole. If psionics are rare, the ones that mages started experimenting on would be tracking him for food.

Non magic/psionics based: Archers have range over mind blast. They'd hang back while the melee characters ran up. That would sure disrupt the trick.