Psionics Balanced?

[Rae ArdGaoth]

Is it just me, or is psionics really overpowered?

I was looking at the War Mind, and I was struck by the strong resemblance to the barbarian. The War Mind gets some of the best features of the barbarian, with fewer drawbacks, and psionic powers to boot.

Also, psions seem noticeably more powerful than sorcerers or wizards. Powers like Ego Whip can take out low-mental-stat monsters with incredible ease, and it seems like every power has a 'kicker', which makes it scalable and highly utilitarian. Metacreationists can summon multiple disposable constructs with trip and cleave feats, and wreak havoc on the battlefield. There are dozens of metapsionic feats which allow characters to buff and power up their spells even more.

The only exception is the Mind Blade, which seems practically useless.

What do you guys think?

 

[Dargon]

I to find them overpowered. I never allow them I games I am running. And I don't like them for what they are, I try to ignore them if they are in the same game as me (ignore= not Psi but wizard/sorc variant)

 

[Hawklord]

I tend to agree.

I allowed Psionics in the last campaign I ran - not sure I ever would again.

I felt the points cost for powers was too low and the scalability far too high. Especially for something like Emapthic Transfer, Hostile

I'm sure they'd be fine in an all-psionics campaign , but compared to standard magic users, psionicists seem to get noticibly more bang for their buck.

 

[JDJblatherings]

We had psionic characters in my campaign for about 3 years and none of them survived past 8th level or so that I recall so i'd have to vote- no not overly powerful and as such psionics are balanced. The only character to survive from the first session to the last (5 or so years later) was a fighter.

 

[Psion]

I was looking at the War Mind, and I was struck by the strong resemblance to the barbarian. The War Mind gets some of the best features of the barbarian, with fewer drawbacks, and psionic powers to boot.

Funny, the war mind never appealed to me.

Edit:
Just glancing at it again, I don't know what you are on about. No trap sense or uncanny dodge, D10 HD instead of D12. Chain of personal superiority resembles rage, but lags behind it.

Also, psions seem noticeably more powerful than sorcerers or wizards. Powers like Ego Whip can take out low-mental-stat monsters with incredible ease,

Ego whip is no big deal. You use ego whip to take out a creature, your efforts will not stack with the rest of the party's. Doing an average of 2.5 points of damage per round (less if you factor saves in) is going to be a slow haul. By the time the psion can spend enough points to do damage faster, more powerful abilities become available to psionics and arcanists that do more impressive things to creatures with "weak mental stats" (read: low will saves.)

Metacreationists can summon multiple disposable constructs with trip and cleave feats,

No they can't. Errata in complete psionic limits astral construct to summoning 1 creature at a time.

Also note most of the "Energy *" abilities get nerfed in complete psionic, along with hostile empathic transfer (though I don't really feel HET needed it.) There are some psionic powers that need nerfed, but you haven't hit on them.

There are dozens of metapsionic feats which allow characters to buff and power up their spells even more.

There are dozens of metamagic feats for wizards and sorcerers. Difference is, metamagic feats don't lower the maximum casting level of your spells, and they aren't limited by psychic focus. (Don't forget, you can't spend more points on a power after all augmentations and metapsionics, than the character's manifester level.)

I think psions come off a little stronger than sorcerers, but then, I think sorcerers are weak (though many prestige classes bypass the weaknesses of sorcerers). But I don't agree that psions are stronger than a competently played wizard. The sheer breadth of what the wizard can bring to bear is dizzying. Classic combinations like "scry and fry", and no save higher level spells, SR bypassing damaging effects are all things that are difficult to achieve or simply not available to psions.

 

[Jack Simth]

Is it just me, or is psionics really overpowered?

If you're doing one encounter per day? Yes. If you're keeping to the recommended four encounters per day? Not so much. Try mapping out the Sorcerer vs. Psion in Spell vs. Power damage output at, say, 10th - keeping in mind that the Sorcerer gets, for the most part, free spell scaling, while the Psion must augment to get what the Sorcerer gets for free.

I was looking at the War Mind, and I was struck by the strong resemblance to the barbarian. The War Mind gets some of the best features of the barbarian, with fewer drawbacks, and psionic powers to boot.

The War Mind is minus Rage and it's variants. As he must be nonchaotic, he's got a fine line to walk in order to keep Rage from previous levels. Rage is a fairly strong ability to have - and it scales with Barbarian level. Whether or not they are entirely balanced with each other is iffy... but then, compare a Barbarian to a Wizard. At the level a Warmind is getting DR 3/- (character level 14) the Wizard is trapping the Barbarian in a Forcecage, then sticking him with some continuing effect that'll kill him. The Warmind gets low-level powers - much like the Bard, really. The Warmind just gets an out from the Forcecage.

Also, psions seem noticeably more powerful than sorcerers or wizards. Powers like Ego Whip can take out low-mental-stat monsters with incredible ease, and it seems like every power has a 'kicker', which makes it scalable and highly utilitarian. Metacreationists can summon multiple disposable constructs with trip and cleave feats, and wreak havoc on the battlefield. There are dozens of metapsionic feats which allow characters to buff and power up their spells even more.

Psionic powers scale manually; Sorcerer/Wizard spells scale for free (to a limit). The Sorcerer-10's Fireball eats up a 3rd level spell slot (effectively 5 power points) while the Psion, forcing his Energy Ball up to 10d6, needs 10 power points (effectively a 5th level spell slot).

Psions have endurance issues. Keep to the DMG recommended 4 encounters per day, and there isn't a problem.

The only exception is the Mind Blade, which seems practically useless.

Well... kinda, yeah. The utility of the Mind Blade drops fairly quickly. But then, so does the Fighter's.

What do you guys think?

 

[Bacris]

Been using 3.5 psionics since it came out - it's about as balanced as the wizard, which is to say, while it has its balance issues, it's pretty much balanced compared to the core.

If you have balance issues with any part of Core (CoDzilla, polymorph, rope trick, etc), then you'll likely need to make some tweaks to psionics - but I've found the tweaks for psionics are fewer and farther between than the ones needed for even Core spellcasting.

 

[Kat']

I find psionics quite balanced on the whole. Psionic powers are somewhat more flexible than spells, but then again, power points get depleted faster than you can say "four encounters per day". Nearly all powers allow a saving throw and are subject to power/spell resistance, which gives psionics a very, very tough time against constructs. There has been a whole issue on this subject of WotC's boards: search fo a thread called "Myth: the XPH is overpowered".

Regarding the War Mind... Sure, the class is good. Good BAB, good Fort and Ref Saves, d10, nice extras, a few powers... nothing to bicker about. But the prerequistites are much harsher than you think.

Alignment restriction is always not-nice, but this isn't really a problem, as well as the +3 BAB (meaning only that low-BAB classes can only enter at level 6 instead of 5... no big deal). BUT:
- Knowledge (psionics) 8 ranks. Only Wizards, Clerics with the Knowledge domain and psionic classes have this skill as a class skill. Meaning others have to take this as cross-class or spend feats (Able Learner comes to mind), and if they stay cross-class, they cannot enter until level 13. At this level, the power of the War Mind is... say, not that great. Wizards, Clerics and psi classes have to sacrifice their spellcasting/manifesting progression upon entering, or, for the Soulknife, their Mind Blade ability, and the 6 (!) powers they get in compensation don't really make up for this loss.
- Psionic Power Point reserve: meaning you have to take a psionic race, a level in a psionic class (see above), or take a really crappy feat.
- Roleplaying issues: you need instruction from another War Mind. Meaning no DM with a brain will allow you to START as a war mind if you can't provide a veeeeery good background.

The only class able to enter this PrC more or less easily is the Psychic Warrior, at the cost of 3 feats (OK, no big deal in comparison with the special powers), four powers, and the HUGE drawback of having only one lvl 5 power and never get access to more before reaching epic levels.

EDIT:

Metacreationists can summon multiple disposable constructs with trip and cleave feats, and wreak havoc on the battlefield.

They're called Shapers, not Metacreationists, but that's a detail, and as someone said you can have only one astral construct in effect at a time, except if you have 5 levels in the Ectopic Shaper PrC, granting you a second astral construct. But keep in mind that Astral constructs are True Neutral summoned creatures and are thus blocked by a simple Protection from Evil/Good/Law/Chaos spell (yeah, the little potions costing 50 gp can prevent the bajilionnesque-level construct from touching you). Furthermore, the constructs can be dispelled or dismissed, cannot enter AMFs, and last for 1 round per manifester level. Nice, but not that overpowered.

 

[Slaved]

There are several very strong powers which help the psion out but in general psions are very weak when compared to the core casters.

 

[rowport]

I find psionics quite balanced on the whole. Psionic powers are somewhat more flexible than spells, but then again, power points get depleted faster than you can say "four encounters per day". Nearly all powers allow a saving throw and are subject to power/spell resistance, which gives psionics a very, very tough time against constructs. There has been a whole issue on this subject of WotC's boards: search fo a thread called "Myth: the XPH is overpowered"..

Kat nailed it. I am currently playing a kalashtar Psion (Telepath), and while he is a fun character who can be deadly effective for short bursts of time, I have to keep a *constant* watch on my power points. The number of encounters per day *really* affects psionic characters due to the hard-stop limit on power points. In our last session I ended up going through two encounters with just my scimitar (and 10 STR!) to fall back on. With a crappy BAB and low hp, that is not an overpowered position to be in.

(Also, FWIW, my experience with Telepath specifically is that it is heavily Will-save dependent. So, it works well against mooks, but your higher-level caster-types save successfully quite often, which sucks when you blow an augmented power on a failed save.)