Psychic Warrior vs. Fighter

[Scion]

Where is that rolls eye smiley when it is needed? lol

Anyway, fighters suck as written, someday they will get a much needed boost.

Psychic warriors have some interesting options, but the hit to BAB and hp hurts their front line power. Given prep time the psychic warrior can beat down pretty well, with proper power selection. But they have a limited number of pp's and psionic feats took a pretty big hit making many of them much less useful.

Quicken is highly underpowered no matter the version currently presented.

Schism is nearly useless. Going by what the designer has said about it over on the wotc psionics board it can effectively do nothing anyway. It was confirmed that it cannot help gain focus, cannot hold a focus of its own, cannot place personal only spells on you, and if we go by the implications of what was said then it also cannot see and thus cannot target. After all of that I am not even sure if there is a use for it at all.

But then, even with that you are assuming haste in 3.0 was broken. Which it was not, when used properly


Ahh well.. I havent gotten to see the new psychic warrior in action yet, I hope to at some point in order to really get a feel for it. If all it does is come across as equivalent to the fighter (slightly better with prep, worse without) then the poor guy is in some major trouble.

 

[Thanee]

Schism is nearly useless. Going by what the designer has said about it over on the wotc psionics board it can effectively do nothing anyway. It was confirmed that it cannot help gain focus, cannot hold a focus of its own, cannot place personal only spells on you, and if we go by the implications of what was said then it also cannot see and thus cannot target. After all of that I am not even sure if there is a use for it at all.

Sounds like a reasonable clarification.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Spatula]

1) The psywarr doesn't need a Wisdom score higher than 10 + 1/3 to 1/2 class level. All of his good powers are buffs, meaning that save DC is irrelevant, so any higher Wisdom score is wasted.

It's not wasted, a higher Wisdom means more PP. Since bonus PP are determined by manifester level and not by the highest power level known (as bonus spells work), the psychic warrior can practically double his PP total with a high wisdom. More PP means the psywar can afford more augmentations (or can last longer before being 'spent').

But you're right in that a psywar doesn't need a high wis.

Incidentally, Brain: the war mind is also fine with a low manifester level for a similar reason: He doesn't ever need to breach PR, so the only assets of a high manifester level are duration and protection from dispelling.

...and it raises the power point cap, which is very important for psionics-users.

 

[Teslacoil1138]

It's a good thing all that about Schism made it into the errata...

Really though, even w/o schism I don't see what is wrong with powers that can be manifested as a swift action. I see it as reflecting the fact that you don't need to spend time bothering with components, manifesting is purely mental and happens at the speed of thought. That's one of the strong points about psionics, and I'd be sorely disappointed if it was toned down.

I will agree that, to an extent, schism is somewhat broken in its printed state. Of course it can't gain or hold focus, but in the description it says it can independently manifest a power as a standard action (only). So it would be helpful to buff yourself with, but you couldn't manifest swift powers with it, nor full-round powers. In that sense, schism does exactly what it was meant to do: help you buff faster in combat.

EDIT: also, it says in the power description "both your minds communicate with each other telepathically." So it sees/hears what you see and hear. Thus, schism can target using your senses. Given that it manifests at 6 effective levels lower than you, using it to manifest offensive powers seems a bit of a waste. So buffs would be your best bet when using schism.

 

[Christian]

That said, PsyWarr2/Ftr2/Warmind 10 might be the toughest build ...

Better watch them skill rank prereqs, cubby. No way to qualify for Warmind before 5th level.

 

[Staffan]

Schism and Quicken are two of the completely broken concepts in the XPH.

I don't see what your beef with Quicken power is. If anything is wrong with Quickening stuff, it's not that ths psion gets it, it's that the sorcerer (and bard) doesn't.

 

[Spatula]

EDIT: also, it says in the power description "both your minds communicate with each other telepathically." So it sees/hears what you see and hear. Thus, schism can target using your senses. Given that it manifests at 6 effective levels lower than you, using it to manifest offensive powers seems a bit of a waste.

No more a waste than using Quicken Power, which carries the same basic penalty (although at a greater PP cost, plus you have to spend your focus - but then, you have to waste an action in order to manifest schism).

 

[Spatula]

I think (one of) Thanee's (many) beefs is that a character can use both schism and Quicken Power to manifest three powers a round. Presumably, if schism didn't exist, or if schism did exist but Quicken Power did not, he would drop that particular complaint.

 

[Thanee]

I don't see what your beef with Quicken power is. If anything is wrong with Quickening stuff, it's not that ths psion gets it, it's that the sorcerer (and bard) doesn't.

Yes, because it violates the core rules, since Quicken cannot be applied spontaneously.

It would be fine, if it worked the same (either) way for both, but it doesn't.

Some people claim, that it's no problem to simply allow a spontaneous caster to use Quicken freely, that might be, altho I think it will make a considerable difference, but can't say, that I have tried it.

My problem is mainly, that they - for no reason - make rules, that just do not follow the guidelines presented in the 3.5 core rules.

And Schism is just plain broken. Not as bad as 3.0 Haste, mind you, but bad enough.

Just look at the above examples of the Psychic Warrior. It's similar to the Cleric... the only real hindrance is the time needed to buff. If that is removed (at least to that degree), it becomes a lot more powerful, than it should be.

Schism and Quicken are the core of this problem, not the buffs, which are fine by themselves, since they do not have superlong durations anymore as in 3.0 and you need to "waste" actions on getting them up. That's the advantage of the Fighter, that he never has to waste such actions to be fully effective all day long. Taking that away considerably weakens them (meant as an opportunity cost, if you know what I mean).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Darklone]

It's not wasted, a higher Wisdom means more PP. Since bonus PP are determined by manifester level and not by the highest power level known (as bonus spells work), the psychic warrior can practically double his PP total with a high wisdom. More PP means the psywar can afford more augmentations (or can last longer before being 'spent').

But you're right in that a psywar doesn't need a high wis.
...and it raises the power point cap, which is very important for psionics-users.

Yes, that's what I meant (was too lazy to type more). A psywarriors main disadvantage compared to a fighter is only relevant when his PPs are gone, the more wis he has, the more PPs...

Fighters do need high Wisdom, but many don't take it. A Psywar with low wisdom suffers more.