Response to Psionics Nerf (Move from inappropriate placement in House Rules thread)

[KarinsDad]

Just as lame as expecting the player of a core druid or cleric to not walk all over the game. Easily broken? Yup. Easily remedied? Yup. DM to player "Just don't do it, mmkay?"

EDIT: Or maybe I'm too much of an idealist to believe that such a simple act could actually resolve some portion of balance issues when classes were designed for 4 encounters per day and the DM recognizes that's not the style of game he's going to have

You must be. I'm too much of a realist to think that I should be telling my players how to play or not play their PCs.

DMs can limit what PC abilities come into their game and it's ok to make a suggestion to a player, but telling players how to not play their PCs stinks of DM manipulation.

We are not talking alignment here, we are talking combat decisions.

Fully augmented powers aren't novaing. Spending all your daily resources in one encounter as quickly as possible, that's novaing.

My defintion of Novaing is different from yours and possibly that is why we are having a disconnect. Novaing is wiping out the opposition and whittling down their numbers as quickly as possible at a high PP cost over multiple rounds because unlike virtually any other class (at least at low to mid levels), the Psion can do so in a few rounds. It just costs him a lot of resources to do so. It is not necessarily using up all of his PP (but it might be) and typically is not (i.e. encounters tend to end quicker if a Psion is doing full augmentations and there is usually nobody left to continue spending PP on).

Look at a first level Wizard. Two worthwhile first level spells. Are you stating that he should never cast both of them in the first combat of the day? He should die before casting that second spell?

Ditto for a first level Human Psion with only 3 PP. He should never ever ever use all 3 PP up in a single encounter (when he might have used 1 for Inertial Armor before the encounter even starts)?

That appears to be what you are claiming.


I do not disagree that it is wise for a player to rarely use up all of his PC's PP in a single encounter, but I would never tell him to never do it.

 

[KarinsDad]

I think this is especially true when held up against a wizard (or perhaps more appropriate) a sorcerer. For example:

Player and DM have an agreement to not nova, because that might be metagaming and the DM would prefer not to have to stat out 5 encounters just in case the player does nova. So, the player humbly agrees to play his character as through resource management is desirable - which a "real" character in game would actually do.

Actually, when faced with imminent death, a "real" character would blast away until all of the enemies were dead and glowing and would not be aware of the metagaming concept of 4 encounters per day. Resource management is a desire, but not as strong of one as staying alive.

Having a player self cripple his PC so that the DM does not have to create 5 encounters per day is metagaming and the very reason some people consider Psionics broken.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Just as lame as expecting the player of a core druid or cleric to not walk all over the game. Easily broken? Yup. Easily remedied? Yup. DM to player "Just don't do it, mmkay?"

EDIT: Or maybe I'm too much of an idealist to believe that such a simple act could actually resolve some portion of balance issues when classes were designed for 4 encounters per day and the DM recognizes that's not the style of game he's going to have

The vast quantity of threads looking for mechanical changes that will serve to rebalance classes that are perceived as overpowered or underpowered speaks to a desire to have a fix that you don't have to enforce socially because the game-breaking exploits have been snipped off. I happen to think it would be nice if I didn't have to ask my players not to break the game, accidentally or deliberately. While I don't really see any problem with the psion, since I never run games with only one combat per day, I can see why some people would have a beef with it.

There was a story a while back about some American broadband ISP (Compuserve, I think) calling customers who were paying for unlimited bandwidth and demanding that they cut down on their bandwidth usage. The customers were rightfully angry at this, and many of them demanded to know why there was a cap on their usage if they were paying for unlimited usage. The ISP said, there's no cap, just stop using so much. The customers demanded to know how much was too much, and the ISP said, there's no cap, just stop using so much.

It turns out that it was cable broadband, which is an utterly awful system because a particular geographical location (a neighbourhood, say) is all on the same local network. The network partitions bandwidth to all the clients, but there's a maximum throughput. If one client (or all of them, for that matter) has a lot of bandwidth use for whatever reason, and there are lots of reasons, it has the chance of slowing down everyone else's bandwidth. That violates the terms of service because there's a clause that says you can't use your internet service in a way that interferes with anyone else's use of the service. So they come down from the mountain like Moses and say, Thou Shalt Not Use So Much Damn Bandwidth, and come across like jerks because they set up a flawed bandwidth delivery system, charged people for unlimited access, and then turned around and changed their minds about the unlimited part, acting like it was the fault of the customers for screwing things up.

I don't want to have to be Compuserve, telling my players not to turn their psions up past 7 or 8 (especially if it's a Wilder, and goes to 11) to smooth over the bumps in a poorly planned system. I also don't think my players want to walk into a game where they're waiting for someone to tell them when too much is too much, and so can't manage their own resources without having to second-guess the system.

Is it too much to ask that things just work for people who play a slightly not-by-the-book sort of game? It's one of the reasons I like the trend away from "per day" resource management toward things like the warlock or the binder, which have abilities that are either balanced to be used every round all day, or which can only be fired a couple of times per combat because an average combat usually doesn't last more than 10 rounds. A warlock functions just fine in a game that has one combat per day, and just fine in a game that has seven. It's simply more portable, and saves the DM a lot of work playtesting, nerfing, playtesting, un-nerfing, nerfing something else, playtesting, dealing with a frustrated player, and then just giving up on the system because it's too much trouble to rebalance for his campaign style, all because he commits the error of not playing "book standard" D&D.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

But, again, there's a difference between novaing and using the resources necessary. There's a very big difference.

If a fully augmented power is needed, use it. But examples that have been tossed about where the psion is max-augmenting every single manifestation is very different than that one shot that NEEDS to be at full power.

Against mooks or enemies nearly dead, it's silly to max-augment every power - it's wasting resources. It's not like I'm saying "never, ever augment to your manifester level." I'm saying "don't nova." Fully augmented powers aren't novaing. Spending all your daily resources in one encounter as quickly as possible, that's novaing.

This is a self-correcting problem, as long as there are going to be combats in which the psion has no power points left. If there aren't, then the psion will easily find justifications for why he had to augment his powers to maximum on each occasion, because there will be no real reason to conserve his resources.

I can just see a DM saying to a psion, "hey, you shouldn't be augmenting your powers like that. They're just mooks. Tone it down or I'll hit you with my DM stick," and the psion replying, "okay, fine. You tell me what I can augment them to, and I'll do it. In fact, why don't I just hand you over the character sheet while I'm at it, if you're so keen on controlling my character's decisions. Sorry I was being mean to your poor mooks. Shall I get them some cookies before I leave?"

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Wizards and Psions have different strengths. Psions are better at direct damage (up until Wizards get to Empower their fireballs); Wizards are better at save-or-suffer, group buffs and utility spells.

Cheers, -- N

This is true. The most popular arcane spell in my Age of Worms game, after the array of self-buffs and defensive measures the wizard stacked on his d4 hit die frame, was Haste. It got cast multiple times per combat, and was cast pretty much first thing each combat. It practically doubled the effectiveness of the melee characters, especially the ones in heavy armour.

 

[DreamChaser]

I noticed that you picked some of the best no save spells for various levels like Magic Missile for the Sorcerer, but then picked Energy Ray for the Kineticist? Sure Energy Ray has no save, but Energy Missile can selectively target up to 5 opponents and doesn't miss with a failed roll to hit (i.e. it typically does damage). Sorcerers typically have to find a metamagic feat to selectively attack multiple targets with an energy spell.

This is just the point...I chose single target (or in the case of MM one that could be focused all on one target.

As I said, with area / multiple target spells, my math would require revising. One example was presented as that: one example.

And yes, sorcerers do have to a way to selectively attack multiple targets with an energy spell...I'm uncertain as to what this has to do with the discussion.

And, as I noted in my thread. There are powers which are widely held to be overpowered. Energy Missile is one of them. This is not a problem with the psionics system any more than 3e haste was a problem with the D&D magic system.

DC

 

[green slime]

Is it too much to ask that things just work for people who play a slightly not-by-the-book sort of game? It's one of the reasons I like the trend away from "per day" resource management toward things like the warlock or the binder, which have abilities that are either balanced to be used every round all day, or which can only be fired a couple of times per combat because an average combat usually doesn't last more than 10 rounds. A warlock functions just fine in a game that has one combat per day, and just fine in a game that has seven. It's simply more portable, and saves the DM a lot of work playtesting, nerfing, playtesting, un-nerfing, nerfing something else, playtesting, dealing with a frustrated player, and then just giving up on the system because it's too much trouble to rebalance for his campaign style, all because he commits the error of not playing "book standard" D&D.

I agree with this sentiment wholeheartedly.

 

[irdeggman]

My defintion of Novaing is different from yours and possibly that is why we are having a disconnect. Novaing is wiping out the opposition and whittling down their numbers as quickly as possible at a high PP cost over multiple rounds because unlike virtually any other class (at least at low to mid levels), the Psion can do so in a few rounds. It just costs him a lot of resources to do so. It is not necessarily using up all of his PP (but it might be) and typically is not (i.e. encounters tend to end quicker if a Psion is doing full augmentations and there is usually nobody left to continue spending PP on).

And quite likely most others too. This could be atrributable to the native language difference.

A nova flares up, expends all of its resources at one time and is essentially a rock when done. Hence the term "nova" is used to indicate that the psion is using up all of his resources in a short period of time - not how quickly he can take down an opponent - that is just the net result.

 

[irdeggman]

Psions also have much fewer long range and area effect powers than arcane casters' spells.

Between this and the focus issue lie some of the greatest balancers.

 

[irdeggman]

This is an interesting generic statement, but what do you have to back this up?

Why can the challenges not be totally unrelated to psionics and not still be challenging?

Basically he is expanded on the introduction of a "system" and not a specific class/feat.

I think you have said similar points on allowing the pros and cons to happen in order to 'balance" things out.

That is the essentials.

Before introducing something "new" (like psonics or incarnum) the DM must look at the pros and cons and figure out if they fit in with his style of play. If they don't then the "new thing" won't fit and shouldn't be allowed.

If a DM uses mainly a single encounter per day gaming style then psionics and spontaneous casting won't work very well since one of their cons is that they have a set amount of uses (either pp or spell slots) than are stretched out over a single day. Classes like a warlock would have less usefulness in a single encounter per day game then in a multiple encounter per day one since its great advantage is the EB once per round all day. It is all about understanding the thing being introduced and figuring out if it fits in with the style of play being used.

Most of the complaints I have seen concerning psionics are from (or at least appear to be) people who just introduced it into an existing game. Frequently because a player convinced the DM to allow him to run a psionic PC in the first place.

I still state that psionics is not a "simple" add in (like a class {in most cases}) but a "system" that changes the dynamic of the game. It more than adding a single class but a way of thinking of encounters, and the like that must be contemplated by a DM before using it. Basically if you don't understand it then don't allow it is a very common sensical rule to use as a DM.