Sell me on Psionics

[Dannyalcatraz]

One thing, which is probably (or at least almost) a different topic: My concerns with Psionics (or Incarnum, or most of the stuff from ToM*) is not the rules, balance issues, etc. It's flavor. If I ask "Why not just use (arcane or divine) magic?", I'd prefer there to be a reason other than mechanics. I understand that there are things that one system or the other simply won't do, or will do much better than the other, and that's got to be a consideration. I don't want players to totally throw making an effective character out the window, that just isn't any fun. But I want there to be some consideration of making the character actually "fun" and "cool" and not just powerful, it can come before or after mechanical considerations, whatever.

Divine magic is about religion & assistance from more powerful beings. Arcane magic is kind of like science, and is about uncovering or developing an innate understanding of the underpinnings of reality and fiddling with them.

Incarnum & ToM stuff are mainly variations of one or the other of the above, drawn from other iconic forms of legendary magic.

Psionics though, for the most part, is about the self- there are few psionic buffs that can target other PCs. The Psionic PC looks into himself to find power, then releases it in various ways.

I guess part of the reason I've posted this is a frustration at the fact that there are a number of players who I think could do really cool things with a Psionic character, but they pretty much don't want to bother with stuff I'm not especially excited by. And there's a lot of stuff that I'm not normally that excited by only because there are other players who will grab for stuff that they think "looks cool", often without fully grasping the rules behind it (generally failing to make a particularly effective character).

I believe it was Crothian who once suggested that you could minimize munchkin-y-ness by having everyone design a PC and pass it one seat to the right on the first night of the campaign. This might work better if it were a one-shot or otherwise limited run.

In your situation, let your people design the PCs, then make them pass one seat to the right. Give them 30 minutes or so to familiarize themselves with the new PC- maybe even let them tweek them a little- and start play...

Actually, the idea of some kind of external power-source for Psionics could be what I need to make it "click" for me.

Well, besides the Tattoo magic I mentioned earlier, you could say that Psionics are only available to those who make a pact with an otherplanar being, perhaps a Far Realms type being. Or perhaps there is a special substance they must consume, like in the Classic Star Trek episode, "Plato's Children." Perhaps its just the truest form of "Ki mastery."

 

[KarinsDad]

Oh I've read that post, but the facts you site are hardly conclusive.

First, you can empower a lot of spells, but you still need to make a concentration check and spend a full round action every time after the first...unless you spend a feat to reduce the time. Even with that, you can't move and cast an empowered power after round one. You also have to reliably make a DC20 concentration check, which can be done, but it can't be done automatically without making Con your best stat or spending a feat, or spending money. Does a wizard have to worry about any of that? No. Oh, and psychic meditation requires you to have Wis 13+, so there go some points you might have spent on another stat, like, say, con.

True. But, we are discussing creating Nova characters.

Complaining that Nova characters have to take certain ability scores in order to become effective Nova characters is like complaining that a Barbarian has to take high Strength and high Constitution to become an effective Barbarian.


And btw, it is good that you are discussing as opposed to other people making claims and then not even attempting to back them up with anything.


But, one does not need to spend money, a feat, or make Con your best stat to consistently make DC 20 Concentration rolls. It helps, but it can be done 100% of the time by 14th level with a mere 14 CON.

At lower levels, it can be done as you suggest, but Psychic Reformation can also be used a higher levels to remove any feat used to boost Concentration.

Oh and overchanneling? Well, you also need to spend a feat to do that as well, and it costs you damage, unless you spend a second feat to protect all of your low level powers. If you Empower that energy missile you will always take 3D8 damage. from doing so, because talented also requires you to spend your focus. Once you want to use that energy ball, you're always taking damage when you use it. Now 3D8 damage to a character with, what, 27 HP before Con? Taking that kind of damage to cause an extra five dice of damage is a real trade off.

So if you want to do what you're talking about and not take damage (except when you're empowering, when you always do, you've spent three feats. What could a wizard do with those feats? Well, how about some of the sudden feats? I'll take three sudden maximizes please!

You can take no damage with Overchannel by using Vigor.

Two feats and one power, not three feats.

In terms of ignoring the damage cap with a spell, that's just flat out wrong. You can spend more power to do more damage, but the cap is still based on your manifestor level...Unless you overchannel. If you're spending more power, its exactly as if you were casting a higher level spell. So my level 10 wizard is spending the equivilent of 5 power to cast fireball for 10d6, while your psion is spending 10 power to do the same thing. That doesn't even count the fact that my wizard was casting fireball two levels before you could.

Nobody made such a claim. You and I are on sync as to caster levels and manifester levels and damage caps.

So what else do you want?

The bottom line is that psions, wizards and other casters all have tradeoffs they make for their abilities. It seems like these tradeoffs are conveniently ignored when discussing how absolutely awesome they are.

I agree that they have tradeoffs. I do not agree that they are "conveniently ignored".

EDIT
Let me add some numbers to my post. Let's take the first three rounds of combat, okay? I'll take my wizard and cast three maximized widened greater firebursts to hit everything within 40' of me for 300 damage.

You'll cast three similar spells doing 45d6+45 for an average of 202 damage. And not move. And take 9D8 damage yourself.

This is not much of an example. Your math is off.

1) A Widened Greater Fireburst hits everything (including your allies) within 20 feet, not 40 feet.

2) There is no way to do 100 points per round with a Maximized Greater Fireburst. 100 is not divisible by 8. The caster would have to be level 12.5 (not 12, not 13) to do this. At level 15, your Wizard would do 360 points of damage in 3 rounds.

3) It would also take 6 feats to do this (shy of metamagic rods). 3 Sudden Maximizes and 3 Sudden Widens (or Maximize or Widen). Unless of course your 15th level caster wants to be casting 8th level normally metamagicked spells. In this case, he could get away with 4 feats (2 8th level spells and 4 5th level spells), but he would need a 17 starting Int and a +6 Headband of Intellect to get a second 8th level spell.



What can the Psion do with 4 to 6 feats to accomplish the burst you just gave as an example at 15th level?

Round 1: Swift Action Temporal Acceleration, Schism, 13 dice Empowered Energy Burst for 88 damage.

Round 2: 40 hit point level 8 Vigor from Schism, DC 20 Concentration roll Move Action to get back focus (100% chance of success), 16 dice Empowered Overchanneled Energy Burst for 108 damage. 17 points of damage came off the 40 Vigor.

Round 3: 9 dice Energy Burst for 61 damage from Schism, DC 20 Concentration roll Move Action to get back focus, 16 dice Empowered Overchanneled Energy Burst for 108 damage. 17 points of damage came off the 23 Vigor.

The Wizard did 360 points of damage in a 20 foot radius. The Psion did 365 points of damage in a 40 foot radius.

The Wizard had to prep his metamagic spells unless he used 6 feats. The Psion used 3 feats if he is a Telepath: Empower Power, Overchannel, and Psionic Meditation. He used a 4th feat Expanded Knowledge: Schism if he is not a Telepath.

The Wizard is SOL if his opponents are immune to fire or potentially does less damage if his opponents are merely strongly resistant to fire (unless the Wizard has other feats). The Psion can change his Energy Burst to other energy types without other feats.

The Wizard is out of Sudden feats. The Psion used 99 out of his 255 PP (same 26 Int as the Wizard). He can continue to do similar Novas for a while. The Wizard too can do some Quicken spells some Empowered spells and still Nova a little bit, but his Sudden Maximizes are finished for the day. Course, these other Wizard metamagic spells require more feats and that he prep the appropriate spell ahead of time.

If the Wizard is using metamagic rods, his opponents can easily Sunder them or Disarm them or temporarily Dispel them. There should be cons as well as pros. Using items to Nova should not be risk free.

There are trade offs for the Nova Wizard as well such as limited times per day or prepping (possibly useless) metamagic and spells ahead of time. People tend to "conveniently ignore" these as well in discussions.

No doubt about it. If one goes out of the core books, the ability of Wizards to Nova has been significantly boosted. And, the Wizard has a lot of resources left over. But, going out of the core books also allows a Psion to Nova better as well (e.g. taking a single level in Anarchic Inititate vastly boosts his Nova ability).


But, Nova is about doing the most damage in the shortest amount of time to the largest number of opponents. Wizards can do this for a few rounds, but it starts getting more difficult beyond 3 total rounds.


And, this is a 15th level example. At lower levels, it is MUCH easier for the Psion to get away with this. D6+1 Energy powers (pre-Empower) do more damage than D6 energy spells.

 

[two]

tricky point

There is a tricky point associated with nova builds.

Most people assume that nova builds burn through resources faster than non-nova builds. This may or may not be true.

It's certainly NOT true on broader party level.

What Nova combats (termed such for a combat where one spellcaster/psionicist uses a lot of resources to end the combat quickly) features is short duration. Nobody argues this. They also feature:

1) Less party damage, HP typically.
2) Less party damage, catastrophic (turned to stone, killed, drained).
3) Less "bad luck".
4) Fewer supporting spells used.
5) Fewer healing/restoring type spells used.

I have absolutely seen this in action on many occasions.

A combat that lasts 2 rounds due to Nova/mopping up techniques leads to very few spell expenditures on the part of the cleric/support casters, and don't burn up valuable healing.

Yes, the Nova PC spent 1/3 of his/her wad for the day. But the cleric spent maybe 1 spell; a supporting caster 1 spell; possibly little or no healing required afterwards.

Compare to a non-Nova PC which causes the combat to stretch out to 4-5 rounds. In these additional rounds, 2-3 other spellcasters cast 1 or 2 or 3 spells; likely some serious damage to dealt out which has to be healed post-combat; and the party has 2-3 additional rounds to fail a save, get criticalled, etc.

If you look at overall party resources, often the BEST thing you can to do conserve resources is to NOVA at the start of a serious encounter - every time. If, after 3 encounters, your NOVA pc is depleted...that's ok. The rest of the party has consumed very few resources and can easily pick up the slack. If there are 3 or fewer encounters per day, then duh, you are golden.

NOVA isn't just about killing stuff quickly; it is a powerful technique for conserving party resources.

This is why some people have issues with classes/magic systems which allow super-easy NOVAing...it makes this effective technique that much simpler.

Psionics by using the power point system allows for incredibly straight-forward and easy NOVAing... NOVAing with spell casters takes often more planning, feats, items, etc.

 

[ainbimagh]

Ok well, the 15th wizard was a little sub-op and the wizard does get bonus feats so lets compare a 7 feated wizard versus 4 feated psion, I'll use your psion example who did 365 versatile damage in 40' radius. (albeit the radius isnt that important as the damage is)

Feats
WBF: Arcane Thesis: Fireball (-1 per/MM)
WBF: Repeat (+3)
WBF: Empower Spell (+2)
Eschew Materials (+0)
Energy Affinity/Substitution: Acid (+0)
Twin Spell (+4)
Maximize Spell

So then my wizard casts a repeated, empowered, eschewed, acidized, twinned fireball, which thanks to Arcane Thesis is a 7th level spell. Total modifers +10 (-5 from AT) = +4

1st Round: 105 (1, 7th level spell)
Two 52.5 damage Fireballs (acid damage)
2nd Round: 210 (+105=315) (1, 7th level spell)
Four 52.5 damage Fireballs (acid damage)
3rd Round: 260 (315+261=576)
* This round he will cast the same spell, but for the sake of battle lasting only 3 rounds, swap max for repeat.
Two 52.5 damage Fireballs (acid damage)
Two 77.5 damage Fireballs (acid damage)

So this wizard just did 576 points of damage. In 3 rounds, used 3 spells. Now this is just ONE example of how min/maxed nova a wizard can get, and I've got a wizard in my current game that can do worse than this. So if you do comparisons, ask for outside assistance there are much more powerful things than what your discussing if you want *NOVA*.

True. But, we are discussing creating Nova characters.

Complaining that Nova characters have to take certain ability scores in order to become effective Nova characters is like complaining that a Barbarian has to take high Strength and high Constitution to become an effective Barbarian.


And btw, it is good that you are discussing as opposed to other people making claims and then not even attempting to back them up with anything.


But, one does not need to spend money, a feat, or make Con your best stat to consistently make DC 20 Concentration rolls. It helps, but it can be done 100% of the time by 14th level with a mere 14 CON.

At lower levels, it can be done as you suggest, but Psychic Reformation can also be used a higher levels to remove any feat used to boost Concentration.



You can take no damage with Overchannel by using Vigor.

Two feats and one power, not three feats.



Nobody made such a claim. You and I are on sync as to caster levels and manifester levels and damage caps.



I agree that they have tradeoffs. I do not agree that they are "conveniently ignored".



This is not much of an example. Your math is off.

1) A Widened Greater Fireburst hits everything (including your allies) within 20 feet, not 40 feet.

2) There is no way to do 100 points per round with a Maximized Greater Fireburst. 100 is not divisible by 8. The caster would have to be level 12.5 (not 12, not 13) to do this. At level 15, your Wizard would do 360 points of damage in 3 rounds.

3) It would also take 6 feats to do this (shy of metamagic rods). 3 Sudden Maximizes and 3 Sudden Widens (or Maximize or Widen). Unless of course your 15th level caster wants to be casting 8th level normally metamagicked spells. In this case, he could get away with 4 feats (2 8th level spells and 4 5th level spells), but he would need a 17 starting Int and a +6 Headband of Intellect to get a second 8th level spell.



What can the Psion do with 4 to 6 feats to accomplish the burst you just gave as an example at 15th level?

Round 1: Swift Action Temporal Acceleration, Schism, 13 dice Empowered Energy Burst for 88 damage.

Round 2: 40 hit point level 8 Vigor from Schism, DC 20 Concentration roll Move Action to get back focus (100% chance of success), 16 dice Empowered Overchanneled Energy Burst for 108 damage. 17 points of damage came off the 40 Vigor.

Round 3: 9 dice Energy Burst for 61 damage from Schism, DC 20 Concentration roll Move Action to get back focus, 16 dice Empowered Overchanneled Energy Burst for 108 damage. 17 points of damage came off the 23 Vigor.

The Wizard did 360 points of damage in a 20 foot radius. The Psion did 365 points of damage in a 40 foot radius.

The Wizard had to prep his metamagic spells unless he used 6 feats. The Psion used 3 feats if he is a Telepath: Empower Power, Overchannel, and Psionic Meditation. He used a 4th feat Expanded Knowledge: Schism if he is not a Telepath.

The Wizard is SOL if his opponents are immune to fire or potentially does less damage if his opponents are merely strongly resistant to fire (unless the Wizard has other feats). The Psion can change his Energy Burst to other energy types without other feats.

The Wizard is out of Sudden feats. The Psion used 99 out of his 255 PP (same 26 Int as the Wizard). He can continue to do similar Novas for a while. The Wizard too can do some Quicken spells some Empowered spells and still Nova a little bit, but his Sudden Maximizes are finished for the day. Course, these other Wizard metamagic spells require more feats and that he prep the appropriate spell ahead of time.

If the Wizard is using metamagic rods, his opponents can easily Sunder them or Disarm them or temporarily Dispel them. There should be cons as well as pros. Using items to Nova should not be risk free.

There are trade offs for the Nova Wizard as well such as limited times per day or prepping (possibly useless) metamagic and spells ahead of time. People tend to "conveniently ignore" these as well in discussions.

No doubt about it. If one goes out of the core books, the ability of Wizards to Nova has been significantly boosted. And, the Wizard has a lot of resources left over. But, going out of the core books also allows a Psion to Nova better as well (e.g. taking a single level in Anarchic Inititate vastly boosts his Nova ability).


But, Nova is about doing the most damage in the shortest amount of time to the largest number of opponents. Wizards can do this for a few rounds, but it starts getting more difficult beyond 3 total rounds.


And, this is a 15th level example. At lower levels, it is MUCH easier for the Psion to get away with this. D6+1 Energy powers (pre-Empower) do more damage than D6 energy spells.

 

[SteveC]

True. But, we are discussing creating Nova characters.

Complaining that Nova characters have to take certain ability scores in order to become effective Nova characters is like complaining that a Barbarian has to take high Strength and high Constitution to become an effective Barbarian.

Actually, we are discussing creating nova characters. My point is that you have stated that psions are the best nova characters, but what you are really saying is that a very specific psion build is, which is quite a different thing. D&D is a game about making choices. The more you optimize your character for one specific activity, the more you lose out on anything else. Most of the time when people argue that a particular class is broken, what they're really saying is that if you do a lot of things in combination, it is.

And your barbarian comparison doesn't work. Barbarians need high con and str scores because they're fighters. Psions need a 13 wisdom for what reason other than taking psychic meditation?

But, one does not need to spend money, a feat, or make Con your best stat to consistently make DC 20 Concentration rolls. It helps, but it can be done 100% of the time by 14th level with a mere 14 CON.


At lower levels, it can be done as you suggest, but Psychic Reformation can also be used a higher levels to remove any feat used to boost Concentration.

Ah, but we aren't discussing a 14th level psion, are we? We're talking about a 10th level one. The argument is staying stationary, thank you very much.

And yes, you can, later on get rid of that feat. When you're 10th level, however, you've purchased skill focus concentration rather than something that would be more useful for your character.

You can take no damage with Overchannel by using Vigor.

No, you still take the damage you just have a buffer of additional temporary hit points...unless you're also playing an Elan character. Hmmn, this build is getting more and more specific all the time, isn't it? It seems more and more like we're talking about one build here, rather than the whole psion class. Otherwise, Vigor is a standard action to use.

If I could step out of this argument for a moment and address the original poster here, wondering about psionics. Much of the time when you hear about any class/feat/race or spell being broken, what's really going on is that the problem only occurs when you make a very specific character. You really need to investigate what's being said before you ban something.

Two feats and one power, not three feats.

Well it's three feats for the concentration check at this level, and you also have to pick a specific race (or deal with the fact that you'll be spending your turn every 2-3 rounds reactivating Vigor).

Nobody made such a claim. You and I are on sync as to caster levels and manifester levels and damage caps.

Actually, you did, in post 33:

4) No damage cap (which is basically what you stated with your level comment).

I agree that they have tradeoffs. I do not agree that they are "conveniently ignored".

Well you didn't mention any of them, and they make this build very specific. Perhaps that's what you meant when you said "psions": one very specific psion build that's focused on this and not much else.



[

This is not much of an example. Your math is off.

1) A Widened Greater Fireburst hits everything (including your allies) within 20 feet, not 40 feet.

Actually, I checked the spell compendium and don't know where I got the base 20 feet. The spell is a base 15 feet, widened -->30'.

2) There is no way to do 100 points per round with a Maximized Greater Fireburst. 100 is not divisible by 8. The caster would have to be level 12.5 (not 12, not 13) to do this. At level 15, your Wizard would do 360 points of damage in 3 rounds.

Actually, check the spell compendium, greater fireburst does D10.

3) It would also take 6 feats to do this (shy of metamagic rods). 3 Sudden Maximizes and 3 Sudden Widens (or Maximize or Widen). Unless of course your 15th level caster wants to be casting 8th level normally metamagicked spells. In this case, he could get away with 4 feats (2 8th level spells and 4 5th level spells), but he would need a 17 starting Int and a +6 Headband of Intellect to get a second 8th level spell.

Yes, it would take six feats to do this. The question is: are we debating this in terms of a reasonable build or a possible build? I made that example deliberately to make a point: it is perfectly legal level 10 wizard build (the sudden feats are metamagic feats, and therefore you can take them with your wizard bonus feats). The real question is: does this build actually prove anything? No, it really doesn't. Should a GM say "holy crap, I should ban wizards?" Of course not. The problem isn't with the wizard class, or the psion build, but rather that extreme builds can have extreme results. That's why there's Rule 0.

I'm going to snip your 15th level psion example, below, because we're not talking about a 15th level caster, we're talking 10th.

I did note here that you're using the schism school here rather than the Elan school. You are aware that you've had to spend another feat to get that power, right?

There are trade offs for the Nova Wizard as well such as limited times per day or prepping (possibly useless) metamagic and spells ahead of time. People tend to "conveniently ignore" these as well in discussions.

I'm going to agree with you herel. In any of these discussions, we tend to forget key rules issues that make our points more difficult to prove, and ignore the tradeoffs we have to make. That serves to make the discussion largely useless.

The real problem comes in when a poster asks a question like "should I allow psionics in my game?" What usually happens is that a very experienced member of the boards comes by (which, you certainly are) and says "no, because it can do X, Y and Z!" The problem becomes that this discourages the original poster from adding the element to their game, when it may be either hard to do "X, Y and Z," or it may suffer enough of a drawback to make the character less useful in other situations.

The best answer is to simply let people be aware of those situations so that they can decide what they want to do with them.

I have had just the character you're writing about in a game that I co-ran. The thing is, that character didn't dominate every battle, and we played up to 14th level I think. The game was the Tomb of Abysthor, and this build just wasn't very effective against the zillions and zillions of clerics of Orcus. "Hmmn, I wonder what spells of fourth level or less I should make myself immune to...how about energy missile and energy ball." Since we were running with full transparency, there was a bit of a problem for him. The real problem for us was the cleric, which is to be expected.

--Steve

 

[two]

no comment really

Ok well, the 15th wizard was a little sub-op and the wizard does get bonus feats so lets compare a 7 feated wizard versus 4 feated psion, I'll use your psion example who did 365 versatile damage in 40' radius. (albeit the radius isnt that important as the damage is)

Feats
WBF: Arcane Thesis: Fireball (-1 per/MM)
WBF: Repeat (+3)
WBF: Empower Spell (+2)
Eschew Materials (+0)
Energy Affinity/Substitution: Acid (+0)
Twin Spell (+4)
Maximize Spell

So then my wizard casts a repeated, empowered, eschewed, acidized, twinned fireball, which thanks to Arcane Thesis is a 7th level spell. Total modifers +10 (-5 from AT) = +4

What is Arcane Thesis? It seems to be powering this combo.

No real comment, I'd just like to point out that this build looks extremely specialized and pretty high up there in the min/max range. Meaning, I don't think your average player would come up with this beast.

 

[ainbimagh]

What is Arcane Thesis? It seems to be powering this combo.

No real comment, I'd just like to point out that this build looks extremely specialized and pretty high up there in the min/max range. Meaning, I don't think your average player would come up with this beast.

The build is hardly highly specialized, it uses energy aff/subs to help its spellset overcome common energy resistances. And it houses an array of metamagic effects.

It is a common blaster mage with one feat of specialization which happens to be a very nice feat, but yes this build could get VERY much more specialized, and I could almost double its damage output, but that wasnt neccesary here.

As for what is arcane thesis, its just a nice new feat from PHBII

You have studied a single spell in-depth. Your expertise grants you formidable though narrowly focused arcane mastery.

Prerequisite: Knowledge (arcana) 9 ranks, ability to cast arcane spells.
Benefit: Choose one arcane spell that you can cast to be your thesis spell. When casting that spell, you do so at +2 caster level. When you apply a metamagic feat other than Heighten Spell to that spell, the enhanced spell uses up a spell slot one level lower than normal. For example, an empowered thesis spell uses up a spell slot one level higher than the spell's actual slot (rather than the normal two levels higher).
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new spell.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

To the OP:

As you can plainly see, Psionics does something else very like Arcane and Divine Magic- it can create interminable discussions over which is better!

Yes- Psionics can be a headache ( ) to deal with because of certain combos. In reality, those headaches are just another version of discussions over how people break those Core magics with this combo or that combo.

Eventually, someone will probably start posting about broken Incarnum, Shadow, Binder or Truname builds (though it may only happen with further supplements).

IME, those broken builds (in any "magic" system) rarely show up in actual game play. Even players whom I know know those broken builds rarely use them in play because they don't want to overshadow the other gamers. Most people understand that a campaign can be a delicate thing, and few people get a kick out of vandalizing their own playground.

 

[kaomera]

I managed to score a used XPH for $20.00 today. I haven't really gotten a chance to go back through it yet, so I'm still working from old remembrances and poking about in the SRD...

Divine magic is about religion & assistance from more powerful beings. Arcane magic is kind of like science, and is about uncovering or developing an innate understanding of the underpinnings of reality and fiddling with them.

Incarnum & ToM stuff are mainly variations of one or the other of the above, drawn from other iconic forms of legendary magic.

Psionics though, for the most part, is about the self- there are few psionic buffs that can target other PCs. The Psionic PC looks into himself to find power, then releases it in various ways.

That's the default flavor, which IMHO does not jibe with quite a lot of the powers I've seen. To make a purely internal power-source make complete sense to me I think I'd end up limiting the powers available quite a bit... But the powers list was designed with balance with arcane and divine magic (and whatever else was out there at the time) well in mind. I don't want to pull stuff out that will make Psionics an unfeasible choice in actual play. The most obvious way I've seen for dealing with that so far is to assume that there is some sort of outside power that the Psionic taps. This doesn't have to be a force that actually does the work for the Psionic, it would more likely be a raw power that the Psion manipulates. That's just where my head's at...

I believe it was Crothian who once suggested that you could minimize munchkin-y-ness by having everyone design a PC and pass it one seat to the right on the first night of the campaign. This might work better if it were a one-shot or otherwise limited run.

In your situation, let your people design the PCs, then make them pass one seat to the right. Give them 30 minutes or so to familiarize themselves with the new PC- maybe even let them tweek them a little- and start play...

Well, for one thing I'm not actually worried about "munchkin-y-ness". And I don't think I really have the kind of (idealized?) group that could handle that sort of thing. I'd rather push pre-gens on them than have them try to deal with playing a character that another player had created. My player who comes up with 4+ pages of background in the time it takes the rest of the group to do their math isn't going to be pleased with anything less (and would probably ignore the game until she got that much scribbled out), and there's maybe one other player in the group who would read what she wrote. There are several players who's sheets simply are not legible (sometimes even to themselves), and others who would be horribly offended if "their" characters didn't fare well due to being "played wrong" by their new owners. Likewise, I expect those same players would blame any misfortune on getting a "badly designed character". And I'd hate to be the player who got the character from the guy who picks feats (and classes, powers, etc.) because "the name sounded cool".

Well, besides the Tattoo magic I mentioned earlier, you could say that Psionics are only available to those who make a pact with an otherplanar being, perhaps a Far Realms type being. Or perhaps there is a special substance they must consume, like in the Classic Star Trek episode, "Plato's Children." Perhaps its just the truest form of "Ki mastery."

I'm thinking more something like the Force from Star Wars, although less of a universal thing, and probably more specifically aligned (ie: no Dark Side / Light Side). I'll go through the XPH and see what all in there (if anything) actually bugs me all that much...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That's the default flavor, which IMHO does not jibe with quite a lot of the powers I've seen.

Well, like the Core magic system tries to cover a lot of magic archetypes, so too does the XPH cover a variety of psionic archetypes. Thus, you have the ones who psionically reshape or reinforce their bodies, but also the powerful telekinetics, energy projectors, and teleporters.

The difference, however, is that unlike most fictional archetypal characters that have one or 2 powers that get refined over time, D&D psionics are generalists. Even the psion, which divides its class list of powers into things like the General list and then Psychometabolism and Telekinesis, is like the Clerics and their general and Domain spells spells.

I'd rather push pre-gens on them than have them try to deal with playing a character that another player had created.

There are 2 differences between that and Crothian's idea (and they are opposites in a way):

1) You don't have to do the work...which lets you concentrate on designing the adventure.

2) Pregens of your own design can have their unique abilities factored into the adventure you write.

As for the 4+ pages of background, just give them guidelines like 1 page of background, in outline/bullet point format.

Actually, if I were doing this, I'd tell the players to design as many PCs as they want (and maybe design a couple myself), but let them know ahead of time that they were unlikely to play the PC they designed- that will minimize detail, at least. Assign numbers to each PC created, and then use your favorite method of random number generation to distribute PCs.