Why Psionics is broken and what to do to fix it

[Someone]

Allow me to second that thought that if the psion is fully augmenting his direct damage powers and is dealing more damage than the warmage and outlasts him, there´s something quite strange going on.

If we´re throwing personal accounts into play, a psion doesn´t usually throw so many high level powers every day. Most of the time it´s a mixture of high level, lower level but augmented because of the not-free-scaling thing, utility, and lower level powers. Even then they have to be careful not to spend too many PPs in one cmbat, unless he´s positive that there´ll be only one combat before resting (for example, a wilderness encounter just before going to sleep). Frankly, the concerns of several posters here (too many high level powers being thrown around, etc) strike me as theoretical, since except some cases the psions performance isn´t that different from other casters.

The exceptions, though, almost always have something to do with Temporal Acceleration.

Also, actual psions tend to be rather one sided. Given the nature of disciplines they tend to be themed and do one thing very well, and the rest not so well, unless they spend many feats on Expanded Knowledge and neglecting things like overchannel/talented, psychic meditation, and metapsionic feats.

 

[Tikiman]

Thanks for your response. However, I said you had your head in the sand, whereas you said I have my head in the sand *and* am stupid. Technically, you've started a fight, so I must respond.

Yeah, but my insult had a smiley face at the end of it, so YOU started the fight.

I hate you.

I'm telling mom!

This is a good point, and its been raised to me by one of my players as a possible solution. I'm building the next session around the premise that the psionsist will run out of PP if I do this. If it doesn't work, I'll be back.

Well, it looks like you're on the road to fixing your own problem (yay), so now lets see how we can help. How exactly will you be running the psion out of PP? Have you seen the Psychic Vampire power? (XPH pg 127)

This I don't like. It just rubs me the wrong way. I'd rather that my encounters as a whole wear them down. In any case, I wouldn't add a rule like this mid-campaign, so for now it isn't an option anyway. (I'm not trying to discourage suggestions, though.)

Hmm, about the only other way to deplete the characters in one encounter is to throw a CR+7 encounter at them, and have that encounter contain loads of equal CR critters (not 2-3 big ones). But this is basically smashing 3-4 encounters into a single one so...

I've got plenty of other suggestions you can take or toss though. You could hit the Psion with a nightmare type spells just before an important battle. The spell prevents him resting properly so he can't regain his PP (its in one of these darn books). Or you could implement a houserule where if you manifest at your maximum manifester level you suffer a -2 manifester penalty for 1 round. At the end of his next turn this penalty goes away. If, in the next round, you manifest at your new highest manifester level (2 lower then before), the penalty stays and you get another -2. As soon as you stop manifesting at max power this penalty goes away at a rate of 2/round. The same system would work for casters, just lower them 1 spell level each time they cast their highest.

My favorite suggestion though would be to simply sit down with the character and have a good long talk (which should involve hitting him with various D&D books). Tell him that's he's being a jerk and hogging the spotlight. Ask him to tone it down so everyone else can have fun too. Remember to cast Eagles Splendor on yourself first for that +2 to diplomacy checks. And intimidate.

Oh, and another thing to add, you could try out these house-rules in 'side games'. Like, lets say you know someone can't show up for the next session. Instead of gaming without them, you could take all the present characters and run them through an imaginary side encounter. Use the house rules in those encounters to test drive them. And if anyone wants to play something totally wacky, let them give it a try. Just make sure the Psion gets played, and that he has an appropriately built caster to compare to.

I can help myself with that. When they come out of the rope trick, they'll be a spellwarped, advanced 36 HD dire bear waiting for them. If they go back in, there'll be two of them waiting for them when they come out.

Of for the love of all things sentient, not another rope trick cheese group. Where do you people find these losers? How is crawling into an extradimensional space and hiding until you're overpowered again heroic? Two things I'd like to point out. 1) Your psion is overpowered due to a wizard spell (*stares meaningfully at the OP*). 2) Rope Trick is often touted as the most broken spell in the PHB. There's an entire thread of ways to deal with it though, but my suggestion would be to simply ban the spell (changing the duration to 10min/level would also work). It basically does what higher level spells try to do (Tiny Hut, Secure Shelter, Magnificent Mansion), only much better.

And another great tactic for dealing with Rope Trick is a Transdimensional Fireball (Complete Arcane, +1 spell slot, affects incorporeal, ethereal, Shadown, and creatures in extradimensional spaces). Don't forget the maniacal laughter too.

In short, I don't think you've provided a solution to the problem.

I did too provide a solution. You just didn't like it. So

If I throw out more unavoidable encounters, eventually the psionicists will run out of PP, but the warmage and (to a lesser extent) the cleric will feel useless becuase they'll run out of spells long before the psionicists run out of PP.

I would like to fervently add my voice to the chorus saying that something is very wrong here. I will completely agree with the idea that a Psion can outdo a Warmage on a /round basis, but there should be no way in the nine hells he can keep it up for longer. At level 10 he should be throwing out 10d6+10 powers for about 11 rounds. The Warmage would be able to do 10d6 for 15 rounds, followed by 14 rounds of level 1 and 2 spells. And this doesn't take into account his Sudden Empower, which should let him do 15d6 once a day.

Check just how many PP your psion actually has and is using. Keep track of every power he uses and the PP required to do it for a couple encounters. I'm not saying your character is cheating, but I'm certainly thinking it very loudly. And don't forget that powers don't scale for free, so a 7pp Energy Ball only does 7d6+7 damage.

One last point: one piece of anecdotal evidence by itself doesn't make a scientific study, but it has two advantages over a theory: 1) it's based in reality, and 2) it has plenty of company (i.e., there's a lot more than one piece of said evidence floating around).

Neither anecdotal evidence nor theory can actually prove anything. It's only when you combine the two that you get close to the truth. And I provided you with a link to a poll of anecdotal evidence about how powerful people thought classes were. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being most powerful) Druid got a 9.4, Cleric and Wizard got 8.6, and the Psion got 8.1. Between this and the fact that 'psionics are overpowered' debates have never been resolved, I think the evidence suggests that some sort of balance is in place here. In my opinion, all casters are broken, and you just have to pick out the bad parts (like Rope Trick, Temporal Acceleration, Timestop, etc).

And thank you very much for approaching this with a sense of humor. It makes things so much easier when you don't have to carefully pick every little word you use for fear the other side will turn it into an attack. And I can finally use sarcasm. Woot!

Oh, and when quoting, don't put =name in the second quote block and use /, not \ (so you should have [/QUOTE] at the end).

 

[Frylock]

Focus, People!

Frylock, if Call to Mind is coming up as a power house of a power then perhaps a second reading is in order. All it does is help A.D.D. players remember things the DM has already told them. Or if the DM knows the player has the power, he can use it to reveal clues later in a session that would otherwise tip the player off too early if the DM actualy mentions them in real time.

Oh good lord. C'mon guys; stay focused. Call to Mind was an example off the top of my head that shows that even a kineticist can do more than just blow up things. At least a warmage can't do any more than explode kobolds. He has limited skills, and his spells and class features serve that purpose (and yes, I know there are a few exceptions). A psion does its overpowered thing in all aspects of the game. Call to Mind is a constant reminder of this fact.

BTW, you've misstated the use of Call to Mind. It has nothing to do with what a DM has told you before. You use it to re-roll your failed knowledge checks on the spot. See XPH, page 82.

 

[Frylock]

I've played 4 psionic characters across 3 different DM's, from level 1 to level 26 (yes, 26). I've always had problems keeping enough power points, and my group always managed to stay relatively close in powerscale, and that's including a pure fighter, paladin, and a bard... Now, given that this is with 3 DIFFERENT DM's, I have to say that either I've been very lucky with DMs (possible), or your just have a crappy DM when it comes to handling psionics (also possible).

So I disagree with your "psionics is broken, that's a fact" and say that it's very much dependent on player, DM, and group.

Were there any house rules that affected psionics adversely? Were you the only "caster"? If anything, I suspect you had a really good DM who knew how to handle psionics and adjusted the encounters accordingly. Other than me, most DMs that allow it have a lot of experience with it. The overwhelming evidence, though, seems to be that psionicists are broken, with characters wielding way too much power, unless steps are taken to weaken it.

Maybe the cause-and-effect is backwards. Power gamers are often attracted to psionics (for whatever reason), and therefore the psionic characters are more powerful. If you're not a pure power gamer, but instead make some decisions based on flavor and role-play, then maybe your psionicists aren't overpowered.

Of course, either way I have a problem, balancing encounters between power gamers and flavorites (huh?), but that's for another thread.

 

[Tsuul]

C'mon guys; stay focused.

I guess I read more into what were saying about Call to Mind then what was intended. The point being made wasn't obvious.

Power gamers are often attracted to Psionics because of the scaling DCs. By scaling the DCs it makes damage a viable kill tactic for more levels then it's arcane counterpart.

If not going the damage route, then they are probably going the self buffing route, which again is strong, but essentialy flawed in a group dynamic where a buffed fighter would be stronger then a buffed caster. But nothing compares to clerics in this reguard.

From what I gather Save or Die psionics don't have scaling DCs and fall in direct comparision with arcane/divine for its life expectancy as a viable tactic. But psionics have less in general.

I had a level 12-14ish wizard one shot a CR 16-18 vampire with a save or die (Halt Undead IIRC). Odds were against the wizard for each cast, but mathematicaly, he would have taken the vamp down before any nukers would have. And the nukers would have just caused said vamp to go gaseous and escape (for a second time). I don't think psionics can even match that.

 

[wildstarsreach]

I've looked in the Player's Handbook II and the Complete Psionic.

I'm looking for where in the PHB II a sorcerer can sacrifice getting a familiar and get metamagic that doesn't make their spells take longer.

I've looked through the CPSY for references about temporal acceleration.

Could you provide the specific pages that were mentioned in previous posts.

 

[wildstarsreach]

Er, no. Unless you take feats, regaining focus is a *full-round action* in and of itself. That means that using a metapsionic feat turns a standard action into a standard action + a full round action. This is clearly a higher cost than turning a standard action into a full round action.

The sorcerer can spontaneously decide to metamagic a spell, and then metamagic it again and again as long as he has slots, never having to take any feat other than the metamagic feat itself. The Psion who only has the metapsionic feat must take *two rounds* every time he manifests a metapsionic'd power, using up a full round and drawing AoO's to regain focus. If he takes an *extra feat*, he can refocus as a move action -- which means that to keep on manifesting metapsionic'd powers he must refocus as a move action and manifest as a standard action, effectively increasing manifesting time to a full-round action. If he takes *two more feats* to get a psicrystal with a focus, then he gets two "free" metapsionic manifestations -- *assuming he starts out psionically focused and with a focused crystal* -- before he has to start refocusing.

This is not a "paltry" cost, and the fact that you refer to it as such is, again, a reason you are not arguing in good faith. If you've actually played a psion you should *know* that regaining focus is a pain in the arse and that whether or not you've expended focus is a very big deal. The sorcerer's unavoidable extended casting time is annoying, yes, but it predominantly nerfs the sorcerer next to the *wizard* (or, in some cases, next to the artificer who's got money to blow on spontaneously metamagic'd wands and scrolls), not the psion, who has to pay a very similar cost to use metapsionics.

And if it bothers you that much, just use the PHB2 variant rules for the sorcerer, giving up the familiar for the use of free metamagic. Now he's better than the psion, but the psion is in turn more flavorful, using his "familiar", the psicrystal, for what the sorcerer now does as a lone wolf.

Page # please. I could not find what you are referring too

 

[Tsuul]

If your looking for the Sorcerer variant in the PHBII to remove your familiar and gain speedy metamagics, its on page 61. Metamagic Specalist.

 

[Zimbel16]

In my opinion, all casters are broken, and you just have to pick out the bad parts (like Rope Trick, Temporal Acceleration, Timestop, etc).

I disagree. Rangers are very well balanced (a little weak, it you ask me). Paladins really aren't too bad either.

More seriously, I don't think that banning the strongest power/sspells is the only solution; it's merely the easiest one. One could, for example, re-design the classes in question. One could, for example, re-design the magic system from the ground up to make their abilities more comparable to non-magic classes at high levels.

 

[Bacris]

Were there any house rules that affected psionics adversely?

No. No house rules, period. We used psionic-magic transparency and that was it. But he did use monsters that had spell resistance or turning...

Were you the only "caster"?

In some, yes. In others, no. It wasn't a problem in either. One game had a cleric (played by the DM so we didn't die) hireling and a druid (played by a player who wasn't really good with playing druids) and, since the characters weren't being played to be broken, my psion was easily on the same level with the entire party. Of course, if either of those characters had been played to be power-houses, my psion would have looked like a wuss (which he did pre XPH, btw...).

If anything, I suspect you had a really good DM who knew how to handle psionics and adjusted the encounters accordingly. Other than me, most DMs that allow it have a lot of experience with it. The overwhelming evidence, though, seems to be that psionicists are broken, with characters wielding way too much power, unless steps are taken to weaken it.

It was actually the first time using psionics for 2 of the 3 DMs, so I don't think it was that the DMs were experienced using psionics. My main DM, who handled 3 of my psionic characters (I had 5, not 4 - one kineticist, one egoist/druid multiclass, two psywars, and an erudite) simply used multiple encounters per day every now and then. But he also understood that encounter doesn't mean combat and would fling traps at us or social situations that required the expenditure of limited use resources. This was an issue for the other casters in their spell slots as well as for my power points.
And the DM didn't do anything special in the encounters to counter psionics - he simply built encounters that took casters / manifesters into account as well as just melee / ranged combatants. Pretty simple.

Maybe the cause-and-effect is backwards. Power gamers are often attracted to psionics (for whatever reason), and therefore the psionic characters are more powerful. If you're not a pure power gamer, but instead make some decisions based on flavor and role-play, then maybe your psionicists aren't overpowered.

Of course, either way I have a problem, balancing encounters between power gamers and flavorites (huh?), but that's for another thread.

I'm not a power-gamer, actually. I am more of a roll-player than a role-player and readily admit to that, but I've always enjoyed psionics for the flavor of it (even back in 2E when the system could literally kill the user) as opposed to being able to pull off stupid combos. If I wanted stupid combos, I would play a wizard...