The Big Picture: Psions Versus Sorcerers

[KarinsDad]

These are important distinctions. Your disdain of them only shows that your conclusion will be flawed.

It is not disdain of the minutia.

It is the fact that it doesn't change the overall results to any significant degree.

There is no way to drill down into every power, every feat, every spell, every ability, and every situation.

So, you have to focus on the important stuff.

What you are bringing up is trivial details on the important stuff. And over and over again, you claim that it is important. If it were important, people would have brought up this minutia already in the thread.

If you rate each of these merits in the 1 - 100 range, changing one from a 62 to a 60 isn't going to make much of a difference in the large scheme of things.

But, that is what you are doing. You are focusing on minor details of each one and turning molehills into mountains.

Sorry. That doesn't add to the conversation. It muddies the waters.


This is called white noise.

Many of the examples you are throwing out (like Sorcerers wearing armor and focusing on non-somantic spells) is not very relative when you look at the big picture.

 

[Scion]

It is the fact that it doesn't change the overall results to any significant degree.

That isnt the point.

It doesnt have to change the overall effect significantly. It simply must be noted because it is important.

No, they arent all so important that they will shake the world, but they are important distinctions none-the-less.

If we had one class with a couple of major abilities that are useful but limited and another with hundreds of minor abilities that range over the entire cosmos it is possible for the two classes to be balanced overall. Although with a comparison such as you are doing now most of the second class would be ignored and it could never be seen as balanced, no matter how balanced it was in the big picture.


Not only that but some of the issues on your list are, at best, misleading because you actually mean something different than what you say and you have phrased it in such a way as to support your position. Even though the raw itself shows your comment to be incorrect you still will not change it and so to me that means the whole comparison is void.

In other words, you have introduced enough uncertainties into the equation that no matter what it says at the end it cannot be trusted.

 

[KarinsDad]

That isnt the point.

It doesnt have to change the overall effect significantly. It simply must be noted because it is important.

No, they arent all so important that they will shake the world, but they are important distinctions none-the-less.

They are extremly minor distinctions in a discusion like this. I am trying to list the main difference here in this thread, not nitpick each one to death. If you want to do that, start your own thread.

Extremely Minor != Important

 

[KarinsDad]

Not only that but some of the issues on your list are, at best, misleading because you actually mean something different than what you say and you have phrased it in such a way as to support your position. Even though the raw itself shows your comment to be incorrect you still will not change it and so to me that means the whole comparison is void.

In other words, you have introduced enough uncertainties into the equation that no matter what it says at the end it cannot be trusted.

Stop posting in this thread if you are going to continue to state that I am misleading here.

I take my integrity seriously and if you keep attacking it, I will ask the moderators to have you stop.

 

[Scion]

They are extremly minor distinctions in a discusion like this.

Untrue, as I have shown.

Especially if something that is basically the same is considered important enough to make it but the corallary in the other system is not considered important enough. It shows heavy bias and makes the whole comparison moot.

Stop posting in this thread if you are going to continue to state that I am misleading here.

I have shown by the raw where you are being misleading and how. You do not agree that the point needs to be made, even going so far as to say that it was stated somewhere else so you dont have to put it in the list (which shows that it should be included as it was important enough to note more than one place), but just because you dont agree that it is needed does not make it any less misleading.

Just the basic example of 'number of choices' needing a qualifier to accurately describe what you are stating shows that some things need to be changed slightly.

It isnt lieing, but it is certainly designed to skew the results, and as such is misleading.

State what you mean in a clear fashion and it wont be an issue.

 

[irdeggman]

Void? Misleading?

There are 277 Psionic powers. A given Psion can get any of those except 9th level non-discipline.

He has access to about 267 or 268 powers including all of the Psychic Warrior powers. I'll change the number to ~267. Done.

It is not whether it is easy to access those, it is that he can.

If you want me to list it as a Sorcerer advantage that Sorcerers get more to choose from ~375 vs ~175++ and a second Psion advantage that Psions can pick from the non-discipline lists including the list from an entire different class, I can do so.

Actually a psion can take ~161 (base psion) + ~16 (discipline) + 10 (if he uses all of his bonus and level based feats - can't count the 1st level feats since it is a minimum of 3rd manifester for the feat). And since it has been shown repeatedly that a psion has much better use of his feats than to take a power more than once of twice - the actual number is effectively reduced.

If we had opened this up to more than the PHB and ExPHB things would expand greatly with the use of feats like Extra Spell and such. But a line had to be drawn somewhere. Might not have been a bad idea to draw it at any books issued prior to or in parallel with the ExPsi HB, but that would require a lot of work to check publishing dates, etc.

 

[irdeggman]

How about Shapechange and Metamorphosis, greater?


Advantage sorcerer for one of the most often talked about as being overpowered spells out there.

 

[Dracomeander]

I've got an advantage that needs to be chalked up to the sorcerer.

A sorcerer can use any spell completion or spell trigger item (scrolls, wands, & staves) that contains a sorcerer/wizard spell.

A psion is limited to using just general and his own discipline specific power completion or power trigger items (power stones & dorjes). The psion cannot activate a power completion or power trigger item from another discipline without spending an Expanded Knowledge feat and using up one of his limited number of powers known slots.

 

[KarinsDad]

I've got an advantage that needs to be chalked up to the sorcerer.

A sorcerer can use any spell completion or spell trigger item (scrolls, wands, & staves) that contains a sorcerer/wizard spell.

A psion is limited to using just general and his own discipline specific power completion or power trigger items (power stones & dorjes). The psion cannot activate a power completion or power trigger item from another discipline without spending an Expanded Knowledge feat and using up one of his limited number of powers known slots.

This is handled by S2.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I have shown by the raw where you are being misleading and how.

Moderator note: Scion, I consider your most recent contributions in this thread to be little more than threadcrapping, and taking a consistently argumentative tone. Followed by the statement above you are sailing too close to the wind to be measured. I recommend that you do not post in this thread again.

Regards,