What's wrong with the Psion? (Advice, please)

[Davelozzi]

This quote from Zarrock is from the Malhavoc Press alternate classes poll thread.

Psion: It's pretty much the general consensus that this class was delivered broken and now the creator has fixed it! If that's not official then I don't what is....

I haven't heard anyone complain about the psion, but I'm curious. I haven't used it in play yet but both me and one of my players have purchased the Psionics Handbook and he's planning on rolling up a psion for my campaign either tonight or tomorrow. I was unaware that Bruce had put an alternate psion in If Thoughts Could Kill.

Can anyone give me some more info? I'd like to make sure that we start off on the right foot so that we don't have to convert later. Specifically, I'd be interested to hear from anyone who's used psions in their campaigns regarding whether or not it seemed balanced. I'd also be interested in hearing about some of the changes to the class in the alternate version.

Frankly, I find it sort of annoying that Bruce has posted an alternate version at all. At least with Monte's variants, I figure he wasn't the main designer of the Player's Handbook, so if he has a different opinion, fine. Plus the ranger is free. But with Bruce being the author of the Psionics Handbook, I really feel like he should have had it playtested until he was satisfied. And if he did decided after the fact that it was unbalanced, I feel like the fix should be posted free instead of forcing me to buy yet another product when between my player & I, we've already shelled out money for two copies of the PsiHandbook.

Of course, I'm just operating on the rumors I'm hearing here so the situation could be different. If I'm putting my foot in my mouth (or if there's anywhere that I can go to read Bruce's own take on this) feel free to let me know.

 

[EricNoah]

Just because Bruce designed the Psion doesn't mean he's the one who got to make all the final decisions about stuff. Maybe we're seeing what it would have been like if it hadn't been created by committee?

 

[Piratecat]

I think the psion should have bonus feats similar to the speed the wizards receive bonus feats. With these, they have greater flexibility to take meta-psionics, item creation, and nifty psionic feats in general.

We playtested psionics and thought the psion was pretty well balanced; in retrospect, though, those feats are probably necessary to avoid some frustration.

- Piratecat

 

[Davelozzi]

Please ignore the rant

Fair enough. At any rate, the main point of my post was to get advice/feedback on the how the PsiHB version plays. Maybe I shouldn't have ranted as it'll probably detract from the main issue at hand.

 

[Kraedin]

Psions

Well, under the PsiHB rules, my Savant never quite lived up the the mighty combat effectivness of the party Bard. Using ITCK has helped quite a bit though. Just one caveat: if you use variant rules, just use one set. If you use ITCK with the feats from the Minds Eye and the feats from Dragon, you will end up with some pretty powerful psions.

 

[UniversalMonster]

Whats wrong with the Psion?

He writes too many reviews!



Just kidding!

 

[Davelozzi]

Does the variant psion have improved HD?

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Salutations,

It has been a while since I read it, but I don't think the HD changed.

The changes allowed the psion to choose a couple of minor disciplines (or whatever- schools of psionics) that they could take powers from as well as their main discipline.

There was also a rule about being able to pump up psionic powers by using more psi-points at the time- i.e. you could do more damage with concussion by using more points at the time of the "casting". (You can tell I have not used psionics much, heh)

The adventure also had rules for converting PH spells to psionic powers.

FD

 

[Ishamael]

Where to begin....

Lets start with MAD [Multiple Ability Dependancy]. Where every spellcasting class in the game is dependant on ONE ability score for all his spells, the Psion depends on them all. Imagin if your wizard was told that all Invocation spells depended on his CON score and all his Enchantments depended on CHA while his Divinations where based on WIS. This severely cuts into the psion's versatility as he will only be able to access high level powers from one or two disciplines.

Nonscaling Powers: As is written in the Psionics Handbook, psions are greatly effected by the fact that many of their powers become useless at higher levels. Example: Magic Missle vs. Lesser Concussion

At first level their isn't much difference in power. Likely the psion can manifest L. Concussion more often than a wizard can cast Magic Missle. However, lets not forget that the Concussion powers allow a saving throw while Magic Missle never misses. Fair enough. Now lets look at them cast/manifested by 5th level characters. See the difference. Sure you can manifest L. Concussion more often, but what good is it against the higher level opponents you will be facing? You are stuck with this power now and it will never be very useful again.

Psychic Combat: This is a whole can of worms itself. Simply put, it is broken and is more often a hinderance to the psion. With the nonpsionic buffer in place, it is near imposible to effect nonpsionic opponents. This gets worse at higher levels. While the creature's Saving Throws get better, your ability to attack psionicly never does. Now remember, you don't have the nonpsionic buffer. You have to spend your PPs to defend against psionic creatures. Your only hope is to attack them psionicly until they run out of PPs. But wait, creatures don't have PPs! They can't run out. You are screwed.

Weaker Powers: Compare Schism to Haste or any damage dealing power to it's Arcane Equivalent. Whitefire vs. Fireball. hehehe funny.

Because of the PP system, psions should excell in versatility. They don't though because they get so few powers and many would argue that they have too few PPs. [Bruce is evidently one of those.]

A psion can be very useful, for a time, but he will soon run out of steam way before the wizard, sorcerer, or cleric. The psion will manifest his hard hitting powers and then have to come up with a new strategy while the spellcasters, after casting their highest level spells, will still have scaling lower level powers to lean on.

At 10th level, Magic Missle and Burning Hands are still useful spells. Lesser Concussion and Biocurrent just take up room on the character sheet.


Now. I must say, Bruce's If Thoughts Could Kill fixed a great many of these problems, but I wouldn't use the Psionics Handbook as is.

 

[Dalenthas]

Perhapse I've over compensated, but I made all diciplines work from Charisma, and I've also made their powers discovered chart shifted a level, so they learn 3rd level powers at 5th level, for example.