Psionics: Worth adding in?

[Tyrion]

Thanks, everyone. After reading your suggestions, and the SRD rules, I am very interested in adding psionics, despite the potential challenges of integrating and balancing them. Many of the powers are very, very cool, and combined with the general flavour of psionics and the customizability of the psion, I'm eager to try out the rules.

Any egregious powers, classes, or whatnot to watch out for that might break the campaign?

 

[Thanee]

Some big ones from the SRD:

Astral Construct (easily abusable with anything that increases manifester level), Energy Missile (simply way too powerful for 2nd level; selective targeting is just too strong an effect here), Dispel Psionics (allows +20 dispels at 10th level, completely ridiculous, should simply work as Dispel Magic with a hard cap of +10 and there should be a 2nd power that works as Greater Dispel Magic), Schism (extra actions are rarely a good idea), Metamorphic Transfer Feat (crazy powerful, banning that one is probably the only effective approach; there's a similar feat in Savage Species - Assume Supernatural Ability, which is much more tame and could be used instead).

In general, anything, that allows one to increase one's manifester level has the inherent problem, that it likewise allows to manifest higher level powers than one can currently manifest normally (i.e. a 10th-level character has normally 5th-level powers, but with a +1 bonus to manifester level, suddenly some powers allow 6th-level effects, because of the way augmentation works).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Vurt]

Here are some of the simple tweaks to the rules I've used in my game:

1) Astral construct - can only summon one at a time. No ectoplasmic armies without a prestige class or something.

2) Energy missile - +1 to save DC for every 2d6 augmented. In general, any time you see 1 power point augment resulting in +1 save DC or the like, I recommend you scale it 2 PP = +1 DC. That way it effectively scales the same way spells do.

3) Expanded Knowledge feat - you can only take this feat once. This helps keep the people from cherry picking all the cool powers they want from other disciplines. Sure you could grab energy missile at 5th level, but then you miss out on other cool powers later on.

4) Dispel Psionics - The augment affects the cap on the manifester level, not the manifester level itself. So no augment lets a psion go up to +10 without any problems, just like dispel magic. However, if an 11th level psion augments with an extra PP, this lets them get up to +11 on the dispel check, since the augment bumps the cap up to +12.

I personally haven't had anyone abuse schism or any of the empathic transfer powers, so I don't have any suggestions there. But in general, if you can think of the most conservative way to read any given section of text in the XPH, you should be fine. And if you run into any problems, folks around here are usually quite good and rather polite about offering suggestions.

Hope this helps and have fun!

Cheers,
Vurt

 

[Thanee]

I recommend you scale it 2 PP = +1 DC. That way it effectively scales the same way spells do.

Yeah, that should be the way it is for all powers that have a scaling DC.

4) Dispel Psionics - The augment affects the cap on the manifester level, not the manifester level itself. So no augment lets a psion go up to +10 without any problems, just like dispel magic. However, if an 11th level psion augments with an extra PP, this lets them get up to +11 on the dispel check, since the augment bumps the cap up to +12.

The reason why I would not do it this way is, that then psionicists are better at dispelling magic than magic-users. That just seems wrong to me.

If you prefer the augmentable version, I would highly recommend to make it exactly like any other power (not the mix of scaling and augmentation)... that is... a flat +5 dispel bonus without any augmentation and a +1 to the cap per PP spent (no limit of +20! <- that's kinda the compensation for the lack of Disjunction). That - to me - is more in line with the spirit of the augmentation system.

Bye
Thanee

 

[kigmatzomat]

Psionics have the same, but opposite, problem that Warlocks do. Psionicists are kinda like walking grenades that hemorrhage their energy in short periods of time doing horrific damage. Warlocks, on the other hand, inflict rather mediocre amounts of damage but do so for as long as they are conscious. Sorcerors and wizards are in the middle.

So if you have a warlock who shines b/c his endurance makes the difference, the psionicist will be reduced to swinging a stick towards the end of the day. If your psionicists never manage to run out of power points, the warlock will be pretty blase. I'm willing to play a living warhead that resorts to using a crossbow most of the time and I'm also comfortable playing a character who doesn't do all that much damage but doesn't require any resource management.

The question is if you, the DM, are prepared to have that bomb go off. Me, I'm more that willing to have the first wave of baddies get nuked and leave the guy useless against the BBEG. I'm also willing to see if the party can survive against the waves of minions while the living bomb refuses to detonate. It makes me laugh either way.

 

[Vurt]

The reason why I would not do it this way is, that then psionicists are better at dispelling magic than magic-users. That just seems wrong to me.

Shrug. I don't have a problem with psion-types being better dispellers. They're already better blasters, but being a blaster is more of a role, whereas dispelling is just a useful weapon in your arsenel.

Another way to guarantee that magic using folk end up being better dispellers might be to get rid of greater dispel altogether and simply remove the cap on caster level bonus to dispel magic, but I don't know what other repercussions that might have.

Cheers,
Vurt

 

[wedgeski]

Don't forget the errata for the XPsiH, which can be found here.

 

[NilesB]

There are a couple of problem powers you will have to look at carefully and possibly ban/houserule for your table.
two things though:

1) There are a lot of problem spells you will have to look at carefully and possibly ban/houserule for your table. That doesn't mean you should ban spellcasters.

2) Astral construct is not one of these problem powers, it's of comparable power to and vastly less flexable than Summon Monster/Nature's Ally

 

[iceifur]

Here are some of the simple tweaks to the rules I've used in my game:

1) Astral construct - can only summon one at a time. No ectoplasmic armies without a prestige class or something.

2) Energy missile - +1 to save DC for every 2d6 augmented. In general, any time you see 1 power point augment resulting in +1 save DC or the like, I recommend you scale it 2 PP = +1 DC. That way it effectively scales the same way spells do.

3) Expanded Knowledge feat - you can only take this feat once. This helps keep the people from cherry picking all the cool powers they want from other disciplines. Sure you could grab energy missile at 5th level, but then you miss out on other cool powers later on.

4) Dispel Psionics - The augment affects the cap on the manifester level, not the manifester level itself. So no augment lets a psion go up to +10 without any problems, just like dispel magic. However, if an 11th level psion augments with an extra PP, this lets them get up to +11 on the dispel check, since the augment bumps the cap up to +12.

I personally haven't had anyone abuse schism or any of the empathic transfer powers, so I don't have any suggestions there. But in general, if you can think of the most conservative way to read any given section of text in the XPH, you should be fine. And if you run into any problems, folks around here are usually quite good and rather polite about offering suggestions.

Hope this helps and have fun!

Cheers,
Vurt

A goodly number of these fixes have been implemented in the "Complete Psionic" book. It has fixed versions of the major offending powers (astral construct, energy missile, hostile empathic transfer, etc.).

I disagree about the Expanded Knowledge feat, though. If someone wants to spend their oh-so-few feats to learn a single power (that's not even the highest level power that they can manifest) per feat, I say "go for it." But, then again, I read the Extra Spell feat from Complete Arcane to work basically the same way (but for spellcasting classes). YMMV, though.

 

[Thanee]

Complete Psionics has changed Energy Missile, it hasn't fixed it (at least not completely).

Bye
Thanee