Nifft said:
Fighters don't get [Psionic] bonus feats. How is he getting both Psionic Meditation and Greater Psionic Shot at 6th level?
Killjoy. You ruin all my fun and force me to look stuff up instead of making stuff up.
Nifft said:
At 9th level, 5d6 damage with a Close ray isn't all that. Not for the price of four feats.
5D6?
The 5D6 isn't that much. But 8D6 (range 45) with a Surge for a single Power Point is pretty nice at 9th level. That's 50%+ of most opponent's hit points for 1 PP. If it is a tough opponent, he can boost this to 16D6 (range 85 for 9 PP and typically a save versus massive damage) which will take out most opponents in a single shot. Even if a BBEG survives such an attack (and a spell casting BBEG probably will not), do you really think he wants to stick around for a second dose?
At this same 9th level, the Warlock is doing 5D6 plus an Eldritch Blast. Nice, but not overwhelming. The Essences have saving throws, so they may or may not do anything more than the 5D6. The 5D6 has Spell Resistance, so it may or may not do anything at all. A tough opponent would probably laugh at such an attack.
The main defense to the 8D6 is a miss chance. Otherwise, at 9th level it is a near automatic hit (in a different thread last year, we figured out the touch AC of most creatures and it averages 11 and rarely gets above 14). No spell resistance. No save. And when it is done on multiple rounds, some latter rounds get +1 more to hit and damage. The only opponent with a decent defense against this is a Monk.
Compare that to a 9th level archer who gets three attacks per round with Rapid Shot, but for less damage and less chance to hit and DR.
Human 9th Wilder Feats: (Point Blank Shot, Psionic Shot, Postpone Enervation, Psionic Meditation, Greater Psionic Shot). The advantage over the Warlock is that the Wilder is doing more damage per combat at the lower levels (hence, has a better chance to survive).
Sure, a different 9th level Wilder could surge a 10D6+10 Empowered Energy Bolt against multiple targets for a single feat. This Wilder (as built) would have to wait until 12th level to do such an Empower and could only do a 12D6+12 Energy Bolt at level 9. At higher levels, Empower does do more damage. But, at lower levels, Psionic Shot allows the Wilder to survive easier.
Such a PC would give most DMs fits as their carefully crafted adventures end up with 3 round combats instead of 5 round ones due to the Wilder blowing away most opponents that the other PCs injure. It can really save party resources by picking opponents off quicker. 4D6 at levels 1 and 2, 5D6 at levels 3-6, 6D6 at levels 7 and 8. For one PP a shot. It becomes real nice at level 12 if he uses a feat to acquire Schism and can injure opponents with his standard action and pick one of them off with a 1 PP shot with a swift action most rounds.
I do not necessarily consider this broken, but I do consider it problematic for DMs. At low levels when most players are rolling one die of damage for most attacks, the player of this PC is rolling 4+. If the DM increases the difficulty of encounters to account for this one PC, then a series of bad rolls can quickly lead to a TPK.
Note: Sure the Wilder will not make the Concentration roll to regain the ability every round with Psionic Meditation. With a 14 CON, he'll be successful 55% of the time at level 6. This just means that it is not an every round action. More like one round in three at level 6 (he will not always be just doing this, he'll still need move actions for other things) and one in two at level 9. Some rounds, he will do less damage with his Surged Crystal because it cannot use the Psionic Shot with it. He just has to be smart and pick the most damaged opponent to finish off those rounds.
The real aspect of psionic PCs is that they can Nova, but they burn out their PP quickly if they do so. The advantage of this type of build is that the guy rarely uses a lot of PP (while still doing a lot of damage), so he has plenty of PP to spare when it IS time to Nova.
