Psionics Handbook 3.5 Confirmed!

[Dalamar]

Re: Re

Please don't try to paint Psionic Blast as balanced. I had an 11th Psychic Warrior chain it until the enemy group was slobbering on themselves. He did this quite often. No wizard spell can stun that many creatures or require that many saves before 9th level save for Mass Charm and it has a hit dice cap.

Unless your Psychic Warrior has taken three times the feat Inner Strenght, he can only activate Mind Blast four times a day and be left only with 4PP (if he does have the feats, he can do it five times and be left with 5). He can only activate Mind Blast once per round as a standard action (twice, if he has either haste or schism).
Most foes they are facing, should have a base Will save of at least 2 if it is a weak save for them and 4 or 5 if it is a strong one (and if they do have so few HD, a fireball cast by an equal level wizard will most likely kill such enemies). I'd expect at least some other bonuses to their saves if they're NPCs. How high is the PWarrior's Cha? I don't see him setting save DCs unsavable to Clerics unless he has a Cha around 16, so that his DC for Mind Blast would range from 8 to 27, equal chance for both.
And when you repeatedly use an attack mode against a target, the rounds of stunning aren't cumulative, just like rounds of being charmed aren't cumulative.

 

[Celtavian]

Re: Re: Re

Unless your Psychic Warrior has taken three times the feat Inner Strenght, he can only activate Mind Blast four times a day and be left only with 4PP (if he does have the feats, he can do it five times and be left with 5). He can only activate Mind Blast once per round as a standard action (twice, if he has either haste or schism).
Most foes they are facing, should have a base Will save of at least 2 if it is a weak save for them and 4 or 5 if it is a strong one (and if they do have so few HD, a fireball cast by an equal level wizard will most likely kill such enemies). I'd expect at least some other bonuses to their saves if they're NPCs. How high is the PWarrior's Cha? I don't see him setting save DCs unsavable to Clerics unless he has a Cha around 16, so that his DC for Mind Blast would range from 8 to 27, equal chance for both.
And when you repeatedly use an attack mode against a target, the rounds of stunning aren't cumulative, just like rounds of being charmed aren't cumulative.

Don't just look at this from the perspective of a single class. Think of Psionic blast being use on an entire party while another party is attacking.

The guy used Psionic Blast twice against the encounter. He stunned the rogue, two enemy fighters on the first attack. Then on the second, he luckily stunned the mage and cleric. I had an entire enemy party stunned.

The PC's then proceeded to kill the entire party with no return attack capability. The wizard unloaded a few DD spells on them. Then the party moved in and destroyed them save for the Paladin and LG Pal/Cleric who thought it was a dishonorable fight.

I don't think an 11th level character with relatively powerful warrior capabilities should be able to stun a group of 6 enemy characters with a single power. Even the 7th level spell Power Word, Stun cannot stun so many characters. There are few spells that can affect a large group regardless of hit dice that have such a dire effect. The only one named so far is Wail of the Banshee, which is one of the most powerful spells in the game.

Psionic Blast has an overly powerful effect available at a relatively low level that can easily take out fighters and rogues or any creature with a low will save. Given a decent roll on the die, it has a good chance of taking out creatures with a good will save while guaranteeing those with a low will save are unable to retaliate for 3-12 rounds.

I am hoping Bruce Cordell eliminates or increases the level requirement of such powerful effects in any kind of revision just as revised 3.5 changed overpowerful spells like Harm and Haste.

 

[Dalamar]

I can't give any concrete advice to that. But try any of these:
Throw elementals and undead at them (immune to stunning). If you use Psionics is Magic, an Antimagic Shell (or what is it called) can nicely negate all powers from the pwarrior (as well as the cleric and others).
Get the pwarrior grappled, at his level the Concentration check at DC 25 shouldn't always succeed. Even better if the grappler is immune to stun or a psychic warrior (or perhaps an egoist).
If the pwarrior doesn't manage to catch a whole party at one Blast, have the rest ready ranged attacks/spells in case he will be blasting again. DC 15+damage can get pretty high even with a simple magic missile spell (or, better yet, a fireball or similar).
Blind the pwarrior in any way, if he can't see, he can't target.
Use cannonfodder.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I don't think an 11th level character with relatively powerful warrior capabilities should be able to stun a group of 6 enemy characters with a single power. Even the 7th level spell Power Word, Stun cannot stun so many characters.

Power Word Stun doesn't allow a saving throw.

IME Mind Blast is not significantly more powerful than Fear or even Glitterdust. A psychic warrior shouldn't be able to manifest it until 13th-level, but alas it's an attack mode, not a power. I'm hoping this change makes it in.

If you think it's still overpowered, you could ban/nerf Mind Blast without banning the entire Psionics Handbook. I wouldn't ban clerics just because in 3.0 they could cast Harm. It's easier (and more fun) to ban/nerf Harm instead.

 

[drnuncheon]

If you think it's still overpowered, you could ban/nerf Mind Blast without banning the entire Psionics Handbook.

People are more likely to ban the entire book because it's not as familiar to them, and the problems aren't as widely discussed - so the DM has to wonder "how much of the other stuff is this bad" and "is it worth letting it in and then having to ban/nerf it later"?

Stunning is a killer, though. I used 'stun ray' (from Dragon Annual #5, IIRC) on a BBEG last night - stun for 1 round, plus 1d4 rounds if he fails a Fort save. I figured stunning him for 1 round (and making him drop his stuff) wasn't so bad.

I rolled a '20'. And to confirm, another '20'. Double effect!

And then the DM rolled his save, and got a '3'.

By the time the stun wore off 8 rounds later, he was 2 rounds dead.

J

 

[Celtavian]

re

The Psionic Blast was more of a "pushing over the edge" reason to ban psionics. I am not a big fan of psionics in fantasy campaigns because I feel they are redundant with magic also in the campaign.

Bruce Cordell really needs to go out of his way to make sure there are no psionic powers that are killer power. In 2e, ID insinutation was the power that made me ban psionics. A no save attack mode that stunned an opponent for 1d4 rounds with a low Power Point cost that worked on just about any creature. It wasn't going to happen.

I don't care how cool Bruce thinks it is, it is not cool as a DM for game breaker powers that low level characters can use to make it in the game. I believe one of the molecular powers was also this way. You could break any type of material quite easily even if it was an powerful magical sword. I can't remember the specifics, but I recall this being another power that made me cringe.

 

[green slime]

Re: Re

Please don't try to paint Psionic Blast as balanced. I had an 11th Psychic Warrior chain it until the enemy group was slobbering on themselves. He did this quite often. No wizard spell can stun that many creatures or require that many saves before 9th level save for Mass Charm and it has a hit dice cap.

Excuse me, but you seem to be doing something wrong, or I have completely misunderstood something:

1) I have a psionic attack mode in my PsiHB called “Mind Blast” which seems to do the kind of thing you attribute to “Psionic Blast”.

Mind Blast lists as its attributes:
Area: Cone
NOT
Target: One Living Creature
(more on this later)


2) “Chain”??? Can’t find any “Chain Power” in my PsiHB. Those metapsionic feats that do exist are explicitly off limits for psionic Attack modes, as per the rules.

3) Those rules I can find for “Chain Power” (in Dragon 287, page 54) state:

Chain Power from Dragon 287, page 54
You can chain any power that specifies a single target and has a range greater than touch. The chained power affects that target (the primary target) normally, then arcs to a number of secondary targets equal to your caster level.

Firstly Mind Blast is not a “power” it is a psionic attack mode.

Secondly, you cannot chain Mind Blast, because it targets an area NOT a single target.

A psychic warrior has 40 power points at 11th level, and perhaps a Charisma score of 12 (unlikely). Boosted to 16 via Animal Affinity the save DC for vs his Mind Blast is d20 +3 (+4 vs non-psionic) = 17.5 on average.

You also allowed him to burn 15 power points (Chained Mind Blast) (Abusing the Chain power rules and the rules governing psionic attack modes in the process) The equivalent of an 8th level spell, and wonder why it seems similar in power to a 9th level spell!

An 11th level cleric likely has Will save +7 (Base) +5 (Stat) +2 (Cloak) = +14 isn’t going to fail very often.
The 11th fighter has Will save +3 (Base) +3 (Cloak) = +6 So will fail more often than not. But this is a twit of a fighter. Still, 42,5% of the time, he too, will make his save! Without Iron Will!

One last thing, there is no counter for Psionic Blast. In fact, non-psionics have a harder time saving against it than psionic folk. Wail of the Banshee can be counteracted by a 4th level spell.

The REAL problem in your game seems to me to be that you didn’t read the rules as they were written and added a whole bunch of other cool powerz, with little thought to the consequences. But perhaps I have missed something. Perhaps the Psionic Blast is a different power altogether. But as it isn’t in my PsiHB, perhaps we shouldn’t be complaining about the abusive power of psionics after the introduction of ill-thought out tweeks.

 

[Celtavian]

re

2) “Chain”??? Can’t find any “Chain Power” in my PsiHB. Those metapsionic feats that do exist are explicitly off limits for psionic Attack modes, as per the rules.

3) Those rules I can find for “Chain Power”

Green Slime,

I do mean Mind Blast the psionc attack mode that attacks with a cone. When I say "chain" (Not the Chain] power), I mean used it consecutively as in twice in a row, which is usually enough to stun half an enemy party if they have any fighters or rogues. He had enough points to use the power again and they replenish at a rather robust rate given the proper feats.

I have no house rules for psionics currently. It was all by the book. I may make some if my player is that intent on playing psionically endowed characters.

 

[green slime]

Aha yes having PC problems so didn't see your later post...Sorry *cheesy grin*

Well, he got lucky, and burnt half his power points for that day. At the same time, the enemy was extremely unlucky.

Was he so certain there wasn't an enemy Psion in there?

The easiest fix is to say they can't use attack/defense modes which cost more than the powers they can manifest.

Then the Psion won't use Mind Blast until 10th level, and the Psychic Warrior until 13th.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I have no house rules for psionics currently. It was all by the book.

This is unfortunate. In order to play psionics you will need house-rules This is why I'm hoping there is a revision, which can massively cut down on house rules.

Try visiting the WotC boards and ask around for some issues facing psions.

You just received a very good suggestion about combat mode house rules.

A couple of others you should consider:
Make Animal Affinity an enhancement bonus.
Ban Psychofeedback and Mindfeeder.