D&D 3E/3.5 Psionics 3.5: Errata and Issues to nerf?

[Evilhalfling]

No, if it only allowed a single target, that would be ok. Allowing up to 5 (even with only 15' between them) is too much at that level (as I said, the same power at 3rd or 4th level would be fair (scaled up to 5 or 7, of course)).

So is this your solution? would you change base dmg to 5d6 ?
Comparing this to scorching ray and melf's acid arrow this power is a huge step up. Comparing it to Fireball, the power house of 3rd level attack spells
it is clearly weaker, but on par with the 3rd lvl kinetist spells, due to its far more versitile area.
My 7th lvl psion normally burns half his combat psp on this spell - even with a logical DC progression. In a dungeon enviornment where you have to worry about not hitting you meat shield with cone/line powers. The other entirely overused power is vigor, with + 35 to hp he has as more hp then the fighters.

I think a better change may be to give it a single target, augmented +1psp for each addtional target up to 5 in a 15'area. Moving it from 2nd level compleatly takes out the best dmg spell, energy push/stun, & concussion blast are terrible, leaving only recall pain as the 2nd lvl dmg spell of choice.
thoughts?

 

[Pax]

Except for one (Ayailla's Radiant Burst - but what is Sanctified 2, anyways? ) none of those come even close.

Bye
Thanee

Well, I disagree that only Ayailla's Burst comes close (2d6/round with a duration of Concentration could get pretty nasty, IMO).

"Sanctified 2" means it is a spell on the Sanctified list - every Good-aligned spellcaster has those spells on their list, be they wizard, cleric, ranger, or whatnot. And specifically, a second level spell. (Sanctified spells usually involve some small amount of temporary strength damage; 1 or 1d2 for Ayailla's burst, IIRC).

But when they were making psions in comparison to the other classes, what else but core books did they have to base the class balances on? Certainly, not everyone is going to have the splat books like BOED or BOVD or even Magic of Faerun. However, everyone who's going to get the XPH is certainly going to have the core books.

Wether you have them or not is irrelevant. And seriously, if Player A brings his XPH to the table, I see no reason why Player B can't bring his book-of-choice to the table, either.

Err, only 5-10% of core sorc/wiz spells lack somatic components.

That's what the feat "Still Spell" is for.

I'm supposing that you mean that an extended mage armor (one feat!) plus an enhanced mithral shield (+1 AC, 5% ASF, one in twenty failed spells) would easily make armor a non-issue.

Mithril Buckler +5. +6 to AC, stacks with mage armor, and ZERO ASF. Throw in Heavy Fortification and never worry about a sneak attack or critical hit again - for the grand price of 101,155gp. Cheap, no. Darned useful, HECK yeah.

 

[nimisgod]

at one hour per level, 0 feats. Two castings tends to last most/all of the day.

and 0% spell failure, take a look at the shields again.

My bad. I got confused with the light and heavy shields in the table.

sure, but who cares? The actual difference is not exactly incredible. The mage can cast a slightly higher level spell for a good amount of ac. At that point the mage is 'still' way ahead, armor is not that great for casters anyway. Sure it is nice, but not really even a boon.

Yes, costs less. by the very arguements I used in my last post. Especially considering the cost of that armor check penalty to a lot of builds out there. The long list of skills it hurts is definately a pain.

However, the mage build I gave has no armor check penalty, no arcane spell failure, and he can still have the armor enhancements that he wants.

For a mage, a small difference in AC can mean the difference between life and death. I'm not saying that wiz/sorcs have to be armored like tanks, but each point of AC they have helps, if only against power attacking foes than anything else.

Also, while the gap may look very small at first, with further enhancements to his armor, a psion can outstrip a wiz/sorc in AC. Or he can just manifest his augmented inertial armor.

As for ACP, the long list of skills it hurts does not at all hinder the main profession of the wilder/psion which is manifesting. The exception, of course, is with touch/ranged touch spells. But there are enough auto hit spells with saves to make up the difference, the ratio being far better than spells with verbal components only compared to those with somatic components.

Yep, definately a non-issue. There have been a lot of threads asking why arcane casters even have the penalty. Taking it away doesnt really provide them with any major bonus, sometimes not even a minor one. As they still have to worry about carrying capacity and armor check penalty, while a few simple items/spells can do the job just as well. Being nonproficient sucks.

I still don't think that it's a non-issue, but I, too, wonder why arcane casters are even penalized.

ACP isn't as bad as it seems. Most likely, it's not the wiz/sorc doing all the athletic stuff. Encumberance isn't really a problem if the aforementioned mithral is involved. Even my 8 strength halfling sorcerer can carry mithral full plate (12.5 pounds).

Maybe you have some other evidence that says this, bring it up. The armor definately is a non-issue. Divine types can already wear armor anyway, other types can too but they have armor check penalties, and those are pretty extreme sometimes.

So, by the core, arcane casters can have armor with 0% spell failure and have no armor check penalty. But it doesnt matter, as they arent proficient they are hit elsewhere, and usually dont have a lot of str so that is another cut off point.

I don't really need to bring up any more evidence as this thread supplies that already.

 

[0-hr]

Overall, I would just say leave the whole book more or less as is and play it through.

I think I could hazard a guess and say that you are a player (of a psionic character) rather than a DM.

 

[Scion]

I think I could hazard a guess and say that you are a player (of a psionic character) rather than a DM.

strangely, I am both. I have made a few changes here and there, but currently I am working through it to see how things turn out. After all, it hasnt been around very long. Plus, I hate 3.5 spell changes (not all, but far too many to be happy with them), so seeing how everything balances out using the straight book is very important.

psions can wear armor sure, but they arent proficient. So they suffer the consequences, just like arcanes. Plus, not all spells have somatic components, and it is possible to get rid of the ones that do exist (feat, items, etc). Arcane casters can wear armor the same as psions, but it isnt terribly important. The psions have inertial armor, which ramps up in scale later on. The arcane casters have the same sort of options with higher level slots. Divine casters are not only proficient, but get to ignore any problem anyway. So, the problem here is more that the arcanes are punished unduly, not that psions are too strong.

Personally, in my campaign, I changed arcane spell failure. Everyone suffers from it while casting. But, if you are proficient with the armor you are wearing, the you ignore it. So a mage could spend a level on fighter,or spend some feats, and never have to worry about it again. Simple, elegant, and it makes the most sense to me.

Anyway though, there are some things that might be too strong, and others that might be too weak. With comparisons to things that already exist the things that first appear too strong (energy missile comes to mind) actually work out very well in the comparison. Strangely balanced for what it is, but I would like to see it in play for awhile. It could be that its synergy is too strong, but then that would mean a large number of higher level spells/powers are too strong, which I dont believe is the case either.

so I'll just say, there are many threads about arcane casters and armor, and how they are normally just better to not wear armor, even with dms who ignore spell failure completely. Also, there are a few threads about energy missile and their comparisons with other spells/powers ramping up in levels shows that energy missile might actually be fine just the way it is.

The feat metamorphic transfer is odd, it can be abused in some games, but mostly that seems to rely on the player picking and chooseing from a large number of monstrous manuals. In my game the feat will pose no problems at all. Breath weapon 3/day, sounds cool. Ability to do this or that, great. Go for it. Have yet to see an ability that it would be broken for, even the chokers ability is a fairly nonissue. The dm for the game I am in when not dming thinks the feat is just fine as written as well, he said he'd be happy if someone took it because it would be very interesting.

I am still looking avidly through various boards to see what may be a problem, most of the problems seem to come from being underpowered rather than over though. There are a few strong things, but if they prove to be overly strong I'll know about it ahead of time hopefully and have contigency plans. Right now though there dont seem to be any problems of, 'oh my god that is so broken!'. And for armor, remember that armor check penalty, it is a huge problem, various checks like balance checks mean life/death. Also, in 3.5 it is possible for the mage type to have a better ac without wearing armor than with, it just takes a little planning

 

[Particle_Man]

Oh, and for the original poster:

You will have to decide whether you like the Blue as a +0 LA race or a +1 LA race. To help you decide there is a helpful thread at Wizards.com in the Psionics Handbook section called "How Blue can you get?" Up to 49 pages so far!

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?threadid=226859&perpage=30&pagenumber=49

Best of luck!

 

[Thanee]

So is this your solution?

My solution is to not use psionics.

I think a better change may be to give it a single target, augmented +1pp for each addtional target up to 5 in a 15'area.

That sounds pretty fair to me. So you can either up the damage or the targets (or both to some degree). With 5 targets it's then a 4th level power roughly with lower damage. That seems about right, considering the HUGE benefit of picking targets right out of the middle of a fight.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

Re: Metamorphic Transfer.

In Savage Species, there is a somewhat similar feat, which allows you to pick a (Su) ability from a form you can change into (via polymorph, etc).

You have to pick exactly one power from exactly one form, which you can then use in that form only.

And it also gives you some penalties while you do so.

That seems quite ok to me (maybe a bit much with the penalties, but the limit is ok).

Metamorphic Transfer is like 10 times as good (or even better)!

Even if you change MT that it only allows a total of 3 uses per day of any abilities gained that way, the extreme amount of flexibility is still its biggest problem.

Limiting that flexibilty is the only way to keep this power in check (or just not using it ).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Celtavian]

re

Does someone want to explain to me how the Kineticist is balanced given the energy powers to which they have access? I thought WotC was trying to scale back DC's? Did the person designing the XPH just have a major brain meltdown while making the XPH? Did he not notice that other game designers went out of their way to limit the DC's of spells for all arcane and divine casters?

Being able to boost your DC and damage with the expenditure of power points is a major design flaw and one that will once again keep me from using psionics. Whoever designs the psionics books isn't trying for different from magic, he is trying for more powerful than magic.

I really cannot believe how poorly designed the kineticists energy powers are designed in terms of game and class balance.

 

[Geoff Watson]

Does someone want to explain to me how the Kineticist is balanced given the energy powers to which they have access? I thought WotC was trying to scale back DC's? Did the person designing the XPH just have a major brain meltdown while making the XPH? Did he not notice that other game designers went out of their way to limit the DC's of spells for all arcane and divine casters?

Being able to boost your DC and damage with the expenditure of power points is a major design flaw and one that will once again keep me from using psionics. Whoever designs the psionics books isn't trying for different from magic, he is trying for more powerful than magic.

I really cannot believe how poorly designed the kineticists energy powers are designed in terms of game and class balance.

The scaling DCs are only for damage powers, not 'save or lose' powers, so it isn't that big a problem.

Geoff.