Psychic Warrior vs. Fighter

[green slime]

Hey, just a quick thank you to everyone for staying polite. It's easy to get snarky when you disagree with someone, and it's certainly appreciated when you don't.

Curses. How dare the moderator pop in and pre-empt my snarky remark! I feel all frustrated, and mis-aligned now!

 

[Staffan]

Well put, Elder-Basilisk.

Off the top of my head I can think of 14 feats that are absolutely superb for melee combat:

The problem with the fighter's feats is that the feats he can take at 18th level are pretty much the same he could take at 6th, with a few exceptions that build on previous feat chains (Two Weapon Fighting -> Improved -> Greater, Weapon Focus -> Weapon Spec -> Greater WF -> Greater WS). Meanwhile, the 18th level wizard has upgraded his Fireball to Meteor Swarm. I think fighters need some more feats that have high BAB requirements (and some other feat requirements, to make it harder for pseudofighters like the barbarian to take them - they already get cool high-level abilities).

You'll see people argue that spellcasting prestige classes suck if they give up even one spellcasting level even if they give pretty powerful abilities otherwise (the one exception I can think of is the Elemental Savant). You generally don't see people complain about the loss of the fighter's feats in exchange for the cool stuff provided by various prestige classes. That tells me that the fighter's feats are quite a bit underpowered at high levels.

 

[Scion]

You agree, that a Psychic Warrior is vastly inferior to a Fighter, if Schism and Quicken Power are taken away and Hustle is changed to not grant extra actions, but rather extra movement only (and probably reduced in level then)!

That's what Scion is saying.

Completely incorrect. Please actually read what I have posted thanee.

I have said that the fighter is well under the power curver for where he should be, and that if the psychic warrior comes out to be around the place where the fighter is then he needs some major help, since the fighter already does.

You brought up schism and quicken saying they were overpowered and broken, I simply said that they were not. They are needed to put up buffs quickly before/during combat in order to make short term buffs actually useful to anyone other than whoever gets the jump on someone else.

Ambushes are deadly enough as is without doing what 3.5 has done, given the ambusher an even larger advantage. This is most unfortunate. Your wishing to take them away because you feel they are unbalanced simply unbalances the game further.

Obviously you feel the need to overstate, misinterpret and misuse what I have said in this thread in order to make your position stronger but that is highly suspect and getting close to beligerant.

Like I said before, please actually read what I have put down. If you feel that what you have said in this post is actually accurate the you have horribly misinterpreted everything I have said.

Oh, you also agree, that 3.0 Haste is completely fine and not broken or overpowered in any way.

When used poorly (granting the extra action right away) then sure it is overpowered. However, if you will notice I said that useing it in the way I have done has caused zero problems in any game I have been in or run.

Effectively it is a short term buff that only starts to do something on the 3rd turn! that is a long time to wait. I also said that the ac granting part is probably too much, but you also felt free to ignore that point.

It is a shame though, do go back and reread.


Fighter = boring and a very poor class. If the dm dumps enough feat choices around his feet then it can be made to act like a good class eventually. Or you could pick one of the very, very few builds which are incredibly narrow and specialized with which to make them almost playable.

They simply need more than what they currently have.

Psychic warrior - looks like a decent enough class, has some options which is good. Very weak if not buffed though (comparison to clerics doesnt help as clerics get many more options, most of which are more powerful spell/power wise). They get almost as many bonus feats as the fighter but get 6 levels of powers. This could break the difference.

If they both wind up being about the same power level (on average) then the psychic warrior will need to be beefed up as well. We shall see.

 

[Teslacoil1138]

Wait, you're comparing Turn Undead and an extra "good save" to EIGHT extra feats and access to psionic feats? Unbuffed psychic warrior is underpowered compared to an unbuffed cleric (who, btw, takes a lot longer to buff up)?

 

[Scion]

Well, everyone (almost ) knows, that Harm and Haste have been the most complained about spells in 3.0. And they were changed in 3.5, which makes obvious, that the game designers agreed, otherwise they wouldn't see the need to change them, huh?

No, it is not obvious. Not all of the same designers worked on each. Plus, it could very well be that their changes went too far. Do you like everything that was changed? if so you are definately in the minority.

Haste was strong because it gave an extra partial action which had uses to every class (unlike the new version) and it upped your ac. It is a short term buff though and a third level one at that.

So for a short period of time you gained some benefit out of it. Great, many short term buffs are very strong.

As far as the actual spell goes they could have simply changed it to not give the ac bonus, kept the extra partial action, clarified it to not give the extra partial action until the next full round gained, and the spell would have been perfect. They could have even cut the duration down a bit if that was the problem (concentration + 1 round/2 levels) or something like that. Making it even more interesting

Extra opportunities for everyone, but it is not overpowered.

Just because there are people who complain about something does not make it unbalanced. Everything can be unbalanced in different peoples games. I have been in games where fighter types were considered horribly overpowered as compared to casters, where they were both equal, and where casters were considered horribly overpowered. It all comes down to how the dm runs the game, any of the three can be true. The closer you run to the guidelines presented the more likely one is to have them as balanced.

It just shows, that I understand how magic works and that it needs considerable counteraction to be held in line.

No more than anything/anyone else. It sounds like you are trying to imply magic takes more effort than other parts, it does not.

Some people have a harder time dealing with magic than other things, sure. But then some have trouble with the other things over magic. Some people cant handle high level play, some cant handle low level play, some cant handle mid level play.

It just comes down to what you can deal with and then dealing. Making the game run to the lowest common denominator is a great way to destroy it.

No, you say a psychic warrior (w/o "free" power manifestations) is inferior to a fighter, but you only compare combat uses then and ignore all the other abilities psychic warriors get. To the contrary you say, that every class is better than the fighter, since they get no out-of combat cool stuff (and are not THAT MUCH better at fighting as they should be to compensate for that lack, which is something I can agree with, BTW).

You are making up the free power manifestation whole cloth. Quicken and schism both have a very definate cost associated with them.

I said that an unbuffed psychic warrior is vasly inferior to a fighter. That you should have no problem agreeing with. d8 vs d10, 3/4 BAB vs full BAB, 7 bonus feats vs 11. If they cannot bring their powers to bear then they are well below the curve, when they can bring them all to bear they are slightly above. Which means they average out to be about the same as the fighter. This is most unfortunate.

As I said before, skills can be used both in and out of combat. The fighter gets effectively none. Point against the fighter (both in and out of combat). His prowess inside of combat is not greater than other classes, another point against the fighter. He is very lackluster and boring, this is more of a personal feeling so it doesnt matter. His feat choices (and thus viability) is heavily into dm territory and it takes great intervention to give enough choices for the fighter to be able to simulate being a decent class, massive point against the fighter.

Your arguments are completely inconsistent at that point.
You simply ignore what doesn't suit you at the moment.
You always compare at the best/worst possible situation for your stance.

::sighs:: I have been completely conistant, your reading of my points has been horribly lax however.

Maybe you should try to look at the whole picture once?

Says the guy who wants to take out schism because it is 'overpowered'? Have you even read what it does? It does almost nothing. Especially when you find out what the designer of the power itself has to say about it ;/ at that point it actually does do 'nothing'. Well, other than burn some pp and waste a power slot.

No, that's just specialization. Overspecialization is, for example, to use pretty much all feats to be better with a single combat style.

4 feats for a single weapon isnt 'overspecialization'?????

I am afraid that what you have just said makes no sense at all. That is a major investment. About a quarter of his feats for one thing, one very specific option.

Why is that? You say yourself, that the later feat choices are weak. More options sounds like a better choice to me. Avoids some of the diminishing returns you are complaining about for the high level fighter.

The choices are weak because they are things he could have picked up before. Hence they are lower level options and not always as good. So if his choices tend to get weaker as he increases in level guess what happens to him?

Say that he has picked up all of the 'improved' line of feats. Is he really that much better at combat? sure, he can do a few different things, but nothing all that much better than a much lower level fighter could do anyway. He has gained a few extra combat options (well, slightly improved already existing ones) but nothing really concrete or useful.

Much like how a mage can have every first spell in the entire universe in his book, but it doesnt really make him that much more powerful than a mage who only has 10. You only get to use a very small amount of them at any given time.

Most people get 7 feats total. The fighter gets his 7 as well and then 11 bonus feats. But these bonus feats arent worth as much as a normal, regular feat because they are much more limited. In essence however the fighter trades all of his class abilities in for feats. That is how he is desinged. However, other classes benefits get stronger as they go up. The fighters do not.

Are we reading the same board!? Maybe you are confusing something here...
The last dozens of pages long barbarian versus fighter thread had the majority of posters on the side of the fighter, for example.
The last poll for class power had the fighter ranked up clearly above average.

I have said before that the fighter class can work out for people fine if they take only a couple of levels in it. That way they get the maximum benefit with the least about of suckage. So the poll is woofully incomplete. People will go on there and say, 'well, the fighter is great because I love getting into this prc so fast!'. That does not make the fighter great, it makes the prc great, because you want to get out of anything else as fast as possible to get into it.

We are reading the same boards but you are having a different interpretation. I felt that the barb builds I made in there beat the fighter builds hands down. They were able to do more damage, they had more interesting choices in combat, they were able to avoid certiain situations better (like flanking), had more skills to play with (and actual useful ones), and were more fun to play.

The barb won that one pretty easily.

And how does that fit to your opinion, that fighters are the greatest suck on earth and are completely obsolete, useless and pointless, if they only "need a few thing to be worthwhile" !?

You cant see the connection between, 'this sucks as it is' and 'if we add things it will become better'?

Then again, you are once again overstating what I have said before. The fighter is mainly just currently a glorified npc class.

It wouldnt take a lot to fix them up properly. Just like it didnt take much to fix the bard or the ranger.

A fighter is not a general. A fighter is a fighter.

A general is not a class, it is a profession (or job in today vernacular). Which class should best fit into the roll of a general? Fighter seems like it would be the best choice here, but of course it isnt.

Well, every class is better with prestige classes, even a wizard cannot compare to a wizard/archmage or whatnot.

If this is true then it is a poorly made prc. Any choices should wind up being roughly equal on average over the course of a carear. If class X/prc Y is vastly superior in every way to class X then either there is something drastically wrong with the class, the prc, or both. Prc's are generally about specialization in a certain style or picking up rp opportunities and, well, prestige (but in that case it is effectively the same in abilities as not taking it).

As for the archmage I have little experience with it.. but it looks like you have to basically throw away 4 feats and a bunch of spell slots. I think someone could probably come up with something comparable for either build.

No warrior class ('cept the paladin maybe) is played straight to 20 levels. They are all better off multiclassing.

Barb? great guys to take for a full 20. Higher level abilities are very nice for them. DR 5/- is pretty nice, not being fatigued after you rage is nice, +8 str/con and +4 will saves is pretty incredible.

Ranger? Keeping your progression of 6skill points per level, full bab, two good saves, and some extra spells is not worth it? wow..

Fighter? well.. he gets a couple more feats.. which might wind up having to be a couple of first tier feats.. good thing you came all this way and got your prize of improved initiative or something. woo.

But still, even then the point is not that it isnt nice to multiclass for certain build types. The point is that you are pretty much required to multiclass out of fighter. You will run out of whatever feat tree you had really wanted to do pretty early on, then you are done. Try for a second feat tree (if there is one)? Why? while useing one tree you likely cannot use another. Having the ability to only use a fraction of your feats in any given battle makes those unused feats pretty worthless.

It's a problem with prestige classes being too powerful compared to base classes and multiclassing being too good for warrior types (while being too bad for spellcasters).

As I said above, if the prc is too strong that is a problem. But then, if the base class is too weak that is also a problem. Fighter = too weak. Comparing a prc to the fighter and saying, 'but look! it is stronger than the fighter!' just isnt useful since the fighter is so low on the totem pole to begin with.

And why does it make the fighter completely useless, just because it is not the most powerful choice?

There is a big difference between, 'most powerful choice' and 'powerful enough'. As it is they are well under the curve. Some people really like them, sure, but then some people really like the half orc as is.

And even if the fighter is only used for multiclassing, that is a purpose, too, which makes the class useful.

A class only being useful as a multiclass option does not a good class make. Just the opposite in fact (remember the whole ranger level dipping in 3.0?).


The fighter will likely have a few more combat tricks to use than others, but does this slight (and it is very slight) advantage balance them out? Nah. It is like the mystic theurge only worse.. you pick up some lower level stuff here and there, but rarely any higher level stuff.

They need more skill points and a couple of real skill choices. They need a few more feats tossed in there for them. A couple of special abilities would be nice as well.

But the really big thing is needing to have trees for them to climb, feat trees and large amounts of useful feats is this guys only way to really be a useful class.

As it is they have no real niche. One can be specially made for them to sit in, but others can do it better.

 

[Scion]

Wait, you're comparing Turn Undead and an extra "good save" to EIGHT extra feats and access to psionic feats? Unbuffed psychic warrior is underpowered compared to an unbuffed cleric (who, btw, takes a lot longer to buff up)?

Whoever you are talking with if you would be kind enough to quote that would make it much easier.

If you are refering to my line about, 'Very weak if not buffed though (comparison to clerics doesnt help as clerics get many more options, most of which are more powerful spell/power wise).'

Then it states very clearly that clerics get more options, most of which are more powerful spell/power wise. I doubt you would disagree that 9th level spells vs 6th level powers shouldnt really be much of a comparison. Along with the lower level clericy spells tending to be very nice anyway.. lots of healing, good damage dealing potential, lots of options (they get their whole list, vs the psychic warriors limited choices).

If you mean something else quoting would be good.

Why would a cleric take more time to buff though? They only really need about 3 buff spells. Which is about the same as what the psychic warrior needs.

 

[Teslacoil1138]

Whoever you are talking with if you would be kind enough to quote that would make it much easier.

Well seeing as how my post was directly under yours, I thought it would be an indication of whose post I was referring to. But I'll be sure to quote every time in the future

If you are refering to my line about, 'Very weak if not buffed though (comparison to clerics doesnt help as clerics get many more options, most of which are more powerful spell/power wise).'

Then it states very clearly that clerics get more options, most of which are more powerful spell/power wise. I doubt you would disagree that 9th level spells vs 6th level powers shouldnt really be much of a comparison. Along with the lower level clericy spells tending to be very nice anyway.. lots of healing, good damage dealing potential, lots of options (they get their whole list, vs the psychic warriors limited choices).

True, clerics get up to 9th level spells and a lot of those are great, but that's balanced out by the 8 feats psychic warriors get. And one of the 6th level powers is the equivalent of an 8th level spell (personal mind blank) with the restriction that it's personal only. I think you'd agree that that's pretty damn powerful. Not to mention a psychic warrior can take Expanded Knowledge: Fiery Discorporation as one of their 8 bonus feats and cheat death without a level loss or anything. Or even Psionic Revivification to do the same to their party members, again with no loss of level. The more I think about it, psions/psychic warriors are better at raising the dead than the cleric .

Why would a cleric take more time to buff though? They only really need about 3 buff spells. Which is about the same as what the psychic warrior needs.

You're forgetting (or ignoring) that psychic warriors can get their best buffs as swift actions. Clerics need Quicken Spell (and use their higher-level spell slots) to mimick that effect, otherwise they have to spend 3 turns buffing, compared to the psychic warrior who can buff and attack at the same time.

Also, a cleric would need Extend Spell as well if he wanted his buffs to last for any significant amount of time.

 

[Scion]

Well seeing as how my post was directly under yours, I thought it would be an indication of whose post I was referring to. But I'll be sure to quote every time in the future

Generally a good idea to quote anyway. It could have been you meant some earlier post of mine, or perhaps I posted while you were typing and had meant it to be just under someone elses. Plus, coming after a long post it could be in reference to any part of it.

Not to mention a psychic warrior can take Expanded Knowledge: Fiery Discorporation as one of their 8 bonus feats and cheat death without a level loss or anything. Or even Psionic Revivification to do the same to their party members, again with no loss of level. The more I think about it, psions/psychic warriors are better at raising the dead than the cleric .

Fiery discorporation is a very odd power. It takes up a slot (or in your example a feat) to basically have you come back the next day if certain conditions are met. This can both be a good and bad thing. Generally speaking though it has some major issues with usefulness You have to have an immediate action left (not always easy, especially if you are an elan), you have to have at least 9 pp free (unless you manifest it in the morning or something), you have to make a will saving throw, and you have to be within 30' of a fire. After all of that, if it works, then you are out of the game for a day (say you were only going to be at -2 anyway, you could have been up and running after a simple heal spell), and if your buddies dont win the day then the bad guys could jump you when you reappear.

Interesting power, not sure how good it is yet though.

As for the other power, clerics and druids can already do the exact same thing but without the exp cost. So who is better exactly?

You're forgetting (or ignoring) that psychic warriors can get their best buffs as swift actions. Clerics need Quicken Spell (and use their higher-level spell slots) to mimick that effect, otherwise they have to spend 3 turns buffing, compared to the psychic warrior who can buff and attack at the same time.

Also, a cleric would need Extend Spell as well if he wanted his buffs to last for any significant amount of time.

They both need extend to make their buffs last a useful amount of time, as the 3.5 psionics handbook felt the duration nerf as much as other casters.

Also, point me to one of these swift buffs that dont require spending an extra 6 pp to do it (the equivalent of 3 levels). Clerics can pick up quicken (and according to thanee anyone would be foolish not to get quicken because it is so uber) and quicken any of their spells that they want. Some of the psychic warriors powers do augment to swift, but he has to pay for it and it works for that power only, not any/all of them as the feat.

So I didnt forget it, it just wasnt relevant. They can both do the same thing, it is just that the power augmentation is an improved implimentation of magic. Having choices is nice.

Still though, I doubt many of the psychic warriors powers compare well to a quickened divine favor +6 luck to attack and damage as a 5th level free action spell? mmm.. Then pop up a quickened divine power and have more BAB than the psychic warrior and more hp. (unless the psychic warrior pops off a quickend vigor of course, but then that costs him the same feat, a lot of pp, and his focus.. ouch.)

 

[green slime]

And of course, when the Cleric burns off a Divine Metamagicked Quickened Divine Favour as a 1st level spell + 5 turning attempts...

 

[Thanee]

No more than anything/anyone else. It sounds like you are trying to imply magic takes more effort than other parts, it does not.

Well, magic gives the most options, right? I mean nothing is even close to how much magic gives in terms of options. More options = harder to assess a situation, thus it takes more effort to plan with that in mind.

I definitely notice, that in high level play, while I am surely very able to handle that, magic takes a considerable amount of time in the planning. Actually it's about the only thing, which requires any sort of effort at all.

The rest is so easy to take into consideration, that it takes only a neglectible amount of effort. At least, that's my experience.

You are making up the free power manifestation whole cloth. Quicken and schism both have a very definate cost associated with them.

Please note the "...". I mean free only in terms of actions, really.

I said that an unbuffed psychic warrior is vasly inferior to a fighter. That you should have no problem agreeing with.

Actually I have a very big problem agreeing with it... but I also know where the difference comes from... you are not taking non-combat into account.

d8 vs d10, 3/4 BAB vs full BAB, 7 bonus feats vs 11.

The problem is, you are comparing combat only. Powers have a large impact on non-combat situations as well.

20 powers (I think that's the number they get at 20th level) are a huge asset.

Also, just because a psychic warrior is unbuffed at the beginning, doesn't mean he or she cannot make use of them in a combat, even if the manifestations actually cost actions, as it should be (IMHO).

If they cannot bring their powers to bear then they are well below the curve, when they can bring them all to bear they are slightly above.

Slightly!?

Note, this is when we ignore the time and effort needed to actually manifest them, just the result (as it will be, when you make the jump on someone else, i.e. pre-buffing available).

So, I agree, that an unbuffed psychic warrior, who cannot use any powers at all, would be an inferior fighter, obviously, but where's the point here?

How many psychic warriors do you know, who never use their powers?

As I said before, skills can be used both in and out of combat. The fighter gets effectively none. Point against the fighter.

A point, which you do not take into consideration, when you say an unbuffed psychic warrior is inferior to a fighter.

::sighs:: I have been completely conistant, your reading of my points has been horribly lax however.

See above. No sighing necessary.

I could also quote you, but you can look up your own posts above yourself, I guess.

Especially when you find out what the designer of the power itself has to say about it ;/ at that point it actually does do 'nothing'.

I'm actually not quite sure, what they mean there... can you use Schism to manifest an extra power (i.e. Dispel Psionics), 6 PP below your maximum (can you use Overchannel/Talented with it?), without any metapsionics or anything else, which requires the use of psionic focus, once per round?

If so, then it's too much already.

BTW, I don't expect you to agree here, since you think it's fine, that haste effectively doubles the spellcasting power of a wizard or sorcerer (even if it cannot be cast "for free", aka starts to take effect one round later as you house ruled it).

4 feats for a single weapon isnt 'overspecialization'?????

If you have 18 available? If fighting is your primary purpose? No, not at all.

That is a major investment. About a quarter of his feats for one thing, one very specific option.

A major investment, yes, but "overspecialization" means to go beyond such reasonable borders to me (as clarified above). Major investment is completely fine.

Most people get 7 feats total. The fighter gets his 7 as well and then 11 bonus feats. But these bonus feats arent worth as much as a normal, regular feat because they are much more limited.

Of course, especially later.

Maybe my position becomes more clear, when you look at it this way...

Take fighter (or whatever) levels 1 through 20.

Now look at the "usefulness" (i.e. on a scale of 1 to 10) of the class as a whole (taking some guesstimates, of course) for each of those levels.

Now multiply this "usefulness" by 1.5 for levels 6-10 and by 0.5 for levels 16-20, taking into account, at what levels this game is played the most (tho, actually, then the lowest levels should be weighed higher, but I specifically stay away from that, since they usually fly by faster than the higher levels (altho the system is not built like this, but also somewhat because set backs (level loss)), and any differences are still not very high at the lowest levels).

Add up together these 20 numbers and divide the sum by 20 to get an "overall usefulness".

This is roughly what I am looking at and what I am refering to as "the whole picture".

So, even if the fighter is completely useless at levels 16-20, which the class surely is not, that doesn't make much of a difference, since only few games compared to the whole play in this level range.

I totally agree, that the fighters usefulness degrades from level 10 on, mostly because they don't have any "high level abilities" at all, but that doesn't make the class useless as a whole, as you seem to claim.

You cant see the connection between, 'this sucks as it is' and 'if we add things it will become better'?

I can, but the first does imply, that more then "just a bit" is needed to actually get there...

If this is true then it is a poorly made prc.

Seriously, have you seen any wizard x who can easily keep up with a wizard x/prestige class y ? Any at all ?

It's a special case for wizards, however, as they lose nothing usually, except a feat and a few skill points, when entering a PrC, but gain lots of special abilities usually.

But to some extent, this is true for most PrC.

Also, I would still refer to a fighter x/prestige class y as a fighter, not only the single classed straight fighter.

As for the archmage I have little experience with it.. but it looks like you have to basically throw away 4 feats and a bunch of spell slots.

Well, I wouldn't call Spell Focus a thrown away feat, most wizards tend to pick that up, anyways, and they need only 3 feats, really, 2 of which are Spell Focus. And at least for one specific character concept, Skill Focus: Spellcraft is also highly useful.

Bye
Thanee