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

[KarinsDad]

I suspect that when he means that they changed the casting/pp paradigm to "per encounter", they did away with the "per day" except as a measure of determining how much you'd get "per encounter".

So the number of pp/spell slots you'd get "per encounter" would remain unchanged, whether you had 1 encounter that day or 20.

That's generally what the "per encounter" design entails.

It wasn't clear.

This makes more sense, but then how are normal spell casters handled? Per encounter as well? Presumably.

If so, this resolves some other balance issues that high level spell casters have, but it also really weakens low level spell casters to the point that low level games might become very deadly. Healing in combat, for example, might take a huge hit at low level. The Wizard has a choice of one defensive or offensive in combat spell at first and second level, etc. One spell, then he's back to a crossbow. And how is healing handled between combats? Is everyone up to max every single encounter, cured of blindness and all other afflictions? How boring and computer game-like where people race back to town to heal up before going back in.

If not, then Bards, Sorcerers, and Psions are great for 20 combats per day, but Clerics, Druids, and Wizards are not.

There appear to be significant issues at some levels with this house rule regardless of implementation. Greater issues than Sorcerers or Psions shooting their payload early in the day.

 

[KarinsDad]

The general gist is "burning a lot of power points in a very short time for a very impressive (but insustainable) effect." A good example would be manifesting Schism and having both minds use Overchanneled/Wild Surged powers at full ML."

Precisely.

Burning a lot, but not necessarily burning them all.

 

[Psion]

IMHO the threat of future encounters does more to encourage rationing than any 'nerf', and doesn't penalize any particular class unfairly.

Yup. I agree.

Once the psion has tasted the cold sense of dread that comes with staring with the BBEG after you went nova on a kobold, they tend to be a bit more reserved.

 

[wildstarsreach]

Please let people disagree if they wish to disagree.

And, what problem?

The explicit design that psions are supposed to be able to fully augment like crazy in a short period of time, even to the point that they run out of PP?

How is that a problem?.

Your post was to dismiss my opinions, I just gave a reference for a previous discussion. I don't think the designers saw to the degree that players will utilize the rules to have a character expend themselves so soon.

A first level Wizard can run out of decent spells in 2 rounds. Not 4 encounters, 2 rounds. Nobody is claiming that we should change the Wizard spell rules to handle "this problem".



Well, of course if you are not going to follow the rules, you can do anything:.

We are talking higher level not low and medium. Low level always suck as a wizard or psion is out after one or two encounters.

So, in round one, you could not Schism.



Your second mind is not sped up, hence, it does not get to immediately act. To the second mind, it is the same round and it cannot act until the real round two..

You are wrong here. Look at the comparable power, time stop, anything such as a summoned creature within would be able once the time stop ceased. The full round casting time was handled within the timestop or temporal acceleration.

So, your character did 5 attacks in 4 rounds (the first round schism does not count), 3 of them area affect powers, and the encounter was still going strong? That's a DM issue of overchallenging the group, not an issue of Nova. What were the rest of the PCs doing? Standing around?



Actually, your example is way overzealous in manifesting defensive powers. That battle would probably have been over one or two rounds earlier if the Psion area affect attacked starting in round two. Your example seems way contrived..

No, doing their thing, some of the dm's target the psion or caster and defending oneself is very necessary.

Why?

You have yet to illustrate why using up most or all of a Psion's PP is a problem.

Is it a problem when a group has a party Druid and the Druid casts all of his Cure spells after the first encounter?

Should the DM tell the Druid: "I do not care if PCs are still injured, you HAVE to save some of your Cure spells for later encounters."?.

Not relevant to our discussion.

Let people just play the game. This is NOT a mechanics issue. It's a tactics issue. Your perceived problem is just in some people's heads, but it is illusory. No different than a Fighter deciding to barge into every room, regardless of there potentially being traps there.

It is a player decision, not a DM decision. It is not broken, it works well as designed. It just happens to be different than the capabilities of other classes. But, that is not a problem. It is a difference. If you do not like it, do not allow psionics in your game.

DM's are the one's that have to live with this, this discussion is to give options.

Those that are suggesting 1/4 of their total powers are seriously changing the nature of the game with potential problems that will be unforseen here. It is not a bad idea but don't think it should be adopted without some serious playtesting and would be a houserule at this point.

 

[KarinsDad]

You are wrong here. Look at the comparable power, time stop, anything such as a summoned creature within would be able once the time stop ceased. The full round casting time was handled within the timestop or temporal acceleration.

I'm not wrong since the Temporal Acceleration power explicitly states that Schism is an exception to the temporal rules. You are correct about Summoned creatures, but not Schism.

When your temporal acceleration expires, you resume acting during your current turn

Temporal Acceleration does not create a new turn for the character, it's the same current turn. Since a Swift Action was used to manifest TA, the manifester still has his move action / standard action (or full action) left over for the same round.

Your second mind takes its first action on your turn in the round after schism is manifested

Go ask the question on the WotC Psi boards. They'll give you the same answer I did.

 

[paragondragon]

Which is why in my opinion Metamagic Rods and Sudden Spell feats should not exist.

The Wizard gets his cake and eats it too.

Where are all of the good Sorcerer items and feats that make him as good a Wizard as a Wizard like Metamagic Rods make a Wizard nearly as good a Sorcerer as a Sorcerer? Arcane Preparation so that he can Quicken a few spells? Purchased scrolls? There's something wrong with the balance here.

A Rune Staff, Rune Staffs definately would give Sorcerers the edge to compare with a Wizard...if you have the money to spend.

 

[paragondragon]

And you guys shouldn't whine too much about it. My DM is going to replace all his casters with psions just because they can't cast around me with my jarring song going off. Make a Concentration check DC 30+1d20...oh you can't...too bad, no spells for you. And if I do them subsonic, they don't know whats going on, just know there spells aren't working. I love the bard music, its not a spell, its not supernatural, its just Bardic Music, in a league of its own.

 

[KarinsDad]

And you guys shouldn't whine too much about it. My DM is going to replace all his casters with psions just because they can't cast around me with my jarring song going off. Make a Concentration check DC 30+1d20...oh you can't...too bad, no spells for you. And if I do them subsonic, they don't know whats going on, just know there spells aren't working. I love the bard music, its not a spell, its not supernatural, its just Bardic Music, in a league of its own.

A DM shouldn't allow a Psion to concentrate any better than a caster. Sure, Jarring Song states casting spells, but it came out in Song and Silence before Psionics came out. If one looks in the EPB, Psions tend to be distracted by the same things as spell casters. A concentration check should be a concentration check for anyone trying to concentrate.

 

[Slaved]

And you guys shouldn't whine too much about it. My DM is going to replace all his casters with psions just because they can't cast around me with my jarring song going off. Make a Concentration check DC 30+1d20...oh you can't...too bad, no spells for you. And if I do them subsonic, they don't know whats going on, just know there spells aren't working. I love the bard music, its not a spell, its not supernatural, its just Bardic Music, in a league of its own.

My Song and Silence says that the difficulty class is 15 plus the spells level. How are you getting 30+1d20?

 

[Baby Samurai]

What happens with 5 encounters? 6? 7? 8?

and the player could still be out of PP or spells in a latter encounter. This can especially be true for a dungeon crawl.

Okay, I think the problem here is that you have totally misunderstood how this system works.

It doesn't matter if the DM throws 1 encounter at the party a day, or 15, the casters/manifesters (prepared casters included) will always have 1/4 of their spells/power points at the beginning of an encounter.

They can never be out of spells/power points in a latter encounter.

One of the benefits of this system is that let's say the characters are exploring some mines or what have you and they decide to camp because the casters have used up all of their spells for the day, and then in the middle of the night they are ambushed. Well, all the wizard or psion or whatever could basically do is stand there with his schlong in his hand. With this system they may not be able to cast six 8th level spells in a row, but at least they can cast spells every encounter.