Why Psionics is broken and what to do to fix it

[FrostedMini1337]

Just as a note: I read complete psionics. completely disgusted. What a waste of paper. Rather than rectify the problems and reinforce flavor, they destroy my dreams. Paying 40 dollars for eratta is lame.

 

[wildstarsreach]

(1) There are few powers which are worthwhile which are outside of those elemental powers. Concussion blast is a waste of space and as you are using complete psionics then damage reduction effects the physical powers which really cuts into their effectiveness. You are imposing a fairly large extra limit on the energy powers without giving anything back at all. A fire psion is stuck being a fire psion without expending even more resources beyond what it takes to keep up with damage from a wizard. Yuck. If the number of ranks was lower and they could choose between a greater selection then I might be able to get behind what you are saying, but as is? (2) Even if this is true, which is a big if, I still do not see the reason for the change. A wizard could research a better spell for a higher slot and put it into his pool of nearly limitless choices. But your change does not follow the progression outlined by spells already available to the wizard so you are just making the psion worse. It is ok for one to be better at something than the other however. (3) It is a shield bonus and it is basically the same as the shield spell except that instead of blocking magic missile it has a horribly expensive augment. (4) Free scaling of damage dice is not a psionic thing generally, scaling of other effects is hit or miss. Even for damage there are other tradeoffs however. Instead of free scaling psions get choice and dc increase for the extra cost, tradeoffs. With your change there is no tradeoff, it is simply worse. If you are going to charge more then there should be something to show for it. Otherwise it is simply a nerf and a poor one in this case. (5) I believe that this was already debunked very well earlier in the thread. (7) And the specialist wizard has many more total equivalent slots for the day along with potentiallly orders of magnitude more choices for what to place into those slots. You would simply be better off removing all of them entirely as they could still cause problems, people complain about time stops problems quite often and your changes will only make the psionic a poor cousin yet again in the comparison. (8) Which complaint? (9) Others have covered this, it seems that you were unaware of the choices for the feat in question. Does that knowledge adjust how you would do this rule? (11) So you pick one that is mostly a waste of space? Wizards have baleful polymorph and phantasmal killer while psions have psychic crush. Psychic crush has the same dc as a first level spell or power plus is mind-affecting plus any healing spell will put them back into the fight.

Again, these are suggested house rules to work at balancing the some of the problems I and others see in psionics. We are going to have to agree to disagree.

The advantage of the wizard is his diversity. But he cannot have all his spells available at the same time. The psion always has all his options available no matter the condition.

Take a Psion against a wizard on any given time would be at a severe disadvantage. Now, if the wizard is prepared for the Psion, yep, probably a good match with the wizard with the wizard winning 65-70% of the time however, if the wizard is not prepared, it reverses to between about 25-30%. Again, anecdotal but this is enough to make the conclusions from the premises I'm using.

 

[wildstarsreach]

Just as a note: I read complete psionics. completely disgusted. What a waste of paper. Rather than rectify the problems and reinforce flavor, they destroy my dreams. Paying 40 dollars for eratta is lame.

I tend to agree as this is one of the few books that I have bought rather than use PDF files. If fact anything psionic has always been purchased by me. I think that there are maybe 40 pages that are worthwhile and the rest wasted fluff.

 

[Tsuul]

Should they be greater than the Wizard? I think not. They should be equitable, not superior.

I agree with that for all the classes. But I am refering to the following.
If a wizards abilities can be quantified as the following formula.
2 + 2 + 2 + 2

And the Psion can be quantified as the formula
1 + 3 + 1 + 3

Then what it seems your are doing (on a small scale) is change a few parts of the psion to equal a wizard in those areas it is better and create a formula that looks like.
1 + 2 + 1 + 2

I am over simplifying to the extream though.
Some aspecs of psionics need to be addressed as "supposed to be superior to arcane" while others are to be addressed as "supposed to be inferior to arcane". The DMG briefly touches on the differences between arcane and divine.
I wish I knew psionics well enough (from a design standpoint) to be able to say what areas are where on the powerscale in comparision to other spellcasters.

Wild, I edited my spiteful comment above. I jumped the gun on an accusation. My apologies.

 

[KuKu]

Again, these are suggested house rules to work at balancing the some of the problems I and others see in psionics. We are going to have to agree to disagree.

The advantage of the wizard is his diversity. But he cannot have all his spells available at the same time. The psion always has all his options available no matter the condition.

Take a Psion against a wizard on any given time would be at a severe disadvantage. Now, if the wizard is prepared for the Psion, yep, probably a good match with the wizard with the wizard winning 65-70% of the time however, if the wizard is not prepared, it reverses to between about 25-30%. Again, anecdotal but this is enough to make the conclusions from the premises I'm using.

Yes, they are suggestions, and I was attempting to explain why they might need to be rethought. Giving a different perspective on the matter is usually pretty helpful. The wizard may not have all of his spells available at a moments notice but he does have them all available over the course of a few minutes. Leaving slots open is a great way to have the wizard be able to take advantage of his massive selection. Several people here are giving different lines of thought along with different anecdotal evidence. Some of it agrees in some ways and others of it disagrees. With your latest post in response to my post you brushed off very valid concerns with your proposed changes. This continued right down to the last point about the save or dies which was also shown to be incorrect in the counter example. Hopefully at least some of the responses have been helpful though.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

This thread is huge. Has anyone compiled key points into a handy document? If so, I would appreciate it if they would post the document as an attachment.

 

[Someone]

That would be easy:

"Psionics are broken!"

"No they are not!"

 

[Angel Tarragon]

That would be easy:

"Psionics are broken!"

"No they are not!"

Wow, that was productive.

Seriously though, I am interested in a "Psionics Houserules' document.

 

[Marcus Smythe]

If your interested in specific house rules to offset the strengths of Psionics, the OP is your best bet. A large % of the thread has been spent arguing strengths and weaknesses, and suggesting strategies to allow GMs to deal with Psionics as written, without having to make changes to the rules that (in some opinions) are not necessary.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Just what exactly is OP?