Psionics Handbook 3.5 Confirmed!

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

3e Psionics already owns my soul. Of course I'll buy it.

Now if only I could buy stuff off of Amazon. *Grumbles about credit cards or lack thereof* Everything there is so much cheaper.

 

[Skaros]

So long as Bruce Cordell is on the project, I have faith that the results will be positive. Mindscapes was mostly good, and had most of the needed changes. If he does something similar for the PsiHB, I think we are in good hands.

Very true. He's come up with some good options since releasing the horrible initial version. If all I ever saw was his original psionics handbook, I'd be begging them to keep him off the revised project, but having purchased some of the pdf products where he gave new variants, I'm much more impressed.

Hopefully they'll make power list changes in the same vein as the spell list changes they made in the 3.5 players handbook.

I'd really like to see more uniquely psionic flavored powers, and less conversions of wizard/sorc powers.

Skaros

 

[Psion]

Very true. He's come up with some good options since releasing the horrible initial version. If all I ever saw was his original psionics handbook, I'd be begging them to keep him off the revised project, but having purchased some of the pdf products where he gave new variants, I'm much more impressed.

Well, I think he had a bit of "mother's eyes" over the PsiHB, and steadfastly insisted that there was nothing wrong with the Psion. To a certain extend he was right; certainly I think there was quite a bit that was criticized that really worked.

But I do think, reading some of the revisions he has made, he has aquired a sensible humility and bona fide perception of where the PsiHB is weak.

Again, as with the 3e corebooks, I mostly worry about compatibility with other products that have come out. However, there are fewer products to worry about in the case of psionics, so I worry less. That said, I still fear they may get carried away.

 

[Alaric_Prympax]

Yeah, count another one sold here.

 

[WinnipegDragon]

What's that you say? Psionics has crappy healing? Guess you want the standard magic system then.

Anyone who says this has never seen my wife play... Her 13th level Savant (Constitution focused Psion) used two powers: Body Adjustment and Name Escapes Me. The second power allowed her to absorb hit point/ability/subdual damage, and then she healed herself with body adjustment.

Every magic item she bought/crafted was pumping her CON, up to something in the high 20's - low 30's. She had over 200HPs and could use those powers to work like a 'healing battery' for the whole party. Add on Inertial Barriers for all of the front-line fighters, and she was a more effective damage healer/preventer than any cleric at that level.

She took me totally by surprise with that one...

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

You mean empathic transfer. Effective: yes. Efficient: no.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I never tried it to test it but IIRC people were saying it was bad assed with trigger power. I've done that for ecto puppet and didn't mind the 3 feat expenditue, but for empathic transfer, and the healing one at 4 feats, not so sure.

 

[WinnipegDragon]

You mean empathic transfer. Effective: yes. Efficient: no.

Yup, that's the puppy.

I am curious as to your opinion that it wasn't efficient. In what way?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The body adjustment powers take a long time to use (a full-round), and you have to do this after you use Empathic Transfer.

It's very useful outside of combat (kind of like a wand of cure light wounds) but in combat it's too slow.

 

[Moulin Rogue]

Oriental Adventures 3e - 256 pages, $34.95 US/$48.95 CDN
FRCS and Call of Cthulhu d20 - 320 pages, $39.95 US / $55.95 CDN

A $52 CDN book should fall somewhere in between. The 3.0 Psionics Handbook is only 160 pages, so one would expect at least 100 more pages for this 3.5 version.

Fun (?) fact assembled in retrospect: 3.0 PsiHB, MotP, D&DG and MM2 all cost $41.95 CDN, but the PsiHB, the first of those to come out, has 64 fewer pages than all of those.