Psions vs Sorcerers?

[Eldorian]

Thanks for all the good info. Do you have any links to houseruled psion stuff? I think i'd really like to remove the sorcerer and replace the class with the psion. The sorcerer seems too much like a crappy wizard to me. I had the thought of increasing the psion's power points per day at low levels, because his advantage of being able to use higher level powers all the time is reduced when all you have are 1, 2 and 3rd level powers. Also, i was thinking of changing his casting stats so that Wisdom gives power point increases and what powers he can use, and CHA sets the save DCs. Also, i'm definatly getting rid of the roll your save dc, more randomness just hurts the character, not help. I like the idea of powers that don't scale with level, it's just that they need to be a bit more powerful appearently. You can aways artificially boost them with level by using metapsionic feats like the psionic equivalent of empower. Perhaps if whitefire did 5d6 and as you go up in level you get enough powerpoints to metapsionic it up to equivalent fireball damage, you could build a psion into a mobile artillery platform like a sorcerer.

Anywhoo, out of words.

Eldorian Antar

 

[Ravellion]

With this from WotC itself, so you could pass it by those "WotC only" DMs a helluva lot easier, most problems are fixed. It is a 2MB download though, with lots of feats (most important, escpecially resculpt mind), prestige classes (don't like most of them, but hey), and some extra powers.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/PsionicsPDF.zip

Rav

 

[Spatzimaus]

I think i'd really like to remove the sorcerer and replace the class with the psion.

Nah, what you REALLY need to do is remove the Wizard class. Wizards were always tough to balance correctly since they could always learn more spells just by spending money. And, it solves the age-old question of "how come the bad-guy NPC Wizard didn't leave a spellbook full of valuable spells?"
Besides, the problem isn't that Sorcerer is a bad idea; it's that those who want casting flexibility would take Psion, and those who want powerful attack spells would take Wizard. Their only remaining niche is in number of spells per day, and in most cases you're limited by the other casters in the group. They run out of spells, you're done for the day whether you have anything left or not.
But, drop Wizards, and now there's a niche again for Sorcerers. They become the pure artillery.

That leaves 4 pairs of magical classes, each having a "pure" and "hybrid" class.
Sorcerer and Bard, Psion and Psychic Warrior, Cleric and Paladin, Druid and Ranger.
(Change the Gnome favored class to Sorcerer and give them those three cantrips as known spells, with 2 cantrips per day if they don't have an arcane class. Change the Elf favored class to Psion, or maybe Druid if your campaign fits that better. There, you're good to go.)

The .pdf file Ravellion linked is all of the Mind's Eye articles up until the end of last year, along with a few other psionics-related articles. The stuff since then isn't that great, so it's no big loss to just use that document.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Good houserules? The author of the Psionics Handbook has written some good ones. The catch: Mindscapes costs $7.

www.montecook.com

 

[Darklone]

Btw, are psio talents free actions or what? Otherwise Burst is simply not worth it...

If you don't like the sorcerer (join the club, that class is otterly boring!), think about using the shugenja class from OA, the spellsinger from KoK PG or the chaos mage instead. This will really give that boring generic computer game inspired class some style.

 

[hammymchamham]

some psion powers are free actions, and the ones that are say so. Burst, for example, if used by the psion on herself is a free action. But if used on Meepo, the kobold of the party, its a standard action.

As a dwarf psion, I've used this power a couple times.

 

[Henry]

some psion powers are free actions, and the ones that are say so. Burst, for example, if used by the psion on herself is a free action. But if used on Meepo, the kobold of the party, its a standard action.

As a dwarf psion, I've used this power a couple times.

As I was saying, there's nothing like a moon elf nomad moving at a speed of 55 at first level - and still getting your action. Skate and burst go hand-in-hand.

Other handy ones include catfall, bolt, far hand, and telempathic projection.