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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ishamael" data-source="post: 51842" data-attributes="member: 318">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 ConcussionAt 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.</blockquote>

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