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Message: <blockquote data-quote="two" data-source="post: 2168891" data-attributes="member: 9002">It's been mentionedOne thing that's been mentioned about psionics, which is rather a subtle point in all of its ramifications, is the "1-2 fight a day power point full force everything all out crazy attack" scenarios.Meaning, if any psionicist is pretty sure there is only going to be 1 or two fights in a given day, they have the option (not that they always will use it, mind you) to substantially increase their damage output, quickly ending what might be difficult or long-running battles.Now, this is not usually a big deal.  If they are out of power points after 2 battles, and there are 2 to go -- tough.  They are screwed.Point is, however -- it's kind of tough on the GM to always insure this sort of thing.  In fact, it's near impossible.If you are in a dungeon setting -- it's easy.  3-4 fights are guaranteed pretty much before a rest.  Psionic types are balanced.If you are travelling between the Great Chasm of Cottage Cheese and the Pit of Tarry Lung Excretions, knowing it's a 10 day ride, and you come across a cantankerous Wyvryn on day 4, it's 99% just a random encounter.  The PC's know they just stumbled across the beast.  So the psionicist uses 85% of his/her power points in the one battle -- as quickly as possible.  There is perhaps a 1% chance for another battle that day, nearly none for 2-3 more battles (barring a trap on the GM's part).Most campaigns I have been in are reasonably "realistic" in this way.  If you are at sea, and attacked by a pirate, it's likely that's the only pirate attack you are gonna get that day.  I mean, how many pirate ships are cruising the coastline, after all?  Is the GM going to stagger 3-4 pirate attacks throughout the day in order to insure the psionic character suffers for using power points quickly?  The GM certainly COULD.  At a price.  It's just hard to justify a lot of the time, in the game world.Looking back on it, I'd say a good 75% of my battles in the last year were of the 1-2 in a day variety.  And it was pretty clear they were going to be the only battles that day, barring a very unexpected incident.This isn't a big deal at all with magic-using PC's.  They can't increase their power output quickly and freely.Psionic-types can, and do.  It's a rather "hidden" advantage that I would be wary of.  It might force you, as a GM, to change the way you set up encounters and play the game.If you do a lot of "one big battle a day" encounters -- the psionicists are going to look, feel, and act very powerful.It's strange...adding a single psionic PC's to a non-psionic party might well cause a major shift in the way you play the game and set up encounters.I can't think of another PC class that can have such a big overall effect.[personally, I don't like to be handicapped by these sort of restrictions.  there are a lot of situations where a single attack in a day is the most realistic and sensible setup.  I don't want to drop them because I'm worried about the power-point using psionic types]</blockquote>

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