XPH: Elan Balanced?

[Stalker0]

If any of you have checked out the Elan race in the new XPH, I'm sure you probably gave it a double take.

Now I try to give WOTC races the benefit of the doubt, but I can't see how this one is balanced.

You are an aberration, you are naturally psionic, and when you spend a power point you don't have to eat or drink for 24 hours, and you trance like an elf.

The only penalty is a -2 charisma, and if it was just that then I think it would be fine for +0.

But there's more:

As an immediate action (meaning even if its not my turn), I can spend a power point and gain a +4 "racial" bonus to saving throws until the beginning of my next action. That's really hardcore, AND there's more:

For every power point I spend I can soak 2 points of damage. High level psions gain 100's of power points, which means I can completely soak hoards of damage.. there is no cap.

Do people think this is balanced, and if not, what level adjustment would you suggest? Should there be a cap on the later abilities?

 

[Thanee]

Not that the rest of the book is any better.

Those abilities to add to saves and to soak damage really are quite powerful. I'd make the save ability once per day and the soak one only once per damage taken maybe.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Telperion]

So, up until now Psionics was all wimpy and unimpressive.
Then the design team listened to someone and now it's "unbalanced"?
Okay, well I want it anyway. Now, just to wait for a shipment to arrive...* sighs *

 

[Thanee]

Psionics Handbook 3.0 was - apart from some impressive munchkinism - quite wimpy.
Psionics Handbook 3.0 + Scaling (ITCK) + Options (MS) was quite impressive (even w/o the couple munchkin tricks from the PsiHB).

Now it's basically like that (at least the really bad stuff is mostly gone) plus several other benefits!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Flyspeck23]

I'd house rule elans to LA +1.

That said...
their resilience ability is an immediate action too, as is resistance. Therefore an elan can't do both in the same round, and can't use an immediate or swift action in the round thereafter, which has two effects:
1. The elan can't use any psionic power with a casting time of swift or immediate in that following round (or maybe as a standard action? not sure right now...)
2. The elan can't use resilience or resistance either.

Granted, that's not much of a drawback. But the abilities can't be used every turn (and can't be used more than once per turn, but that's pretty obvious) - a minor drawback for a powerful ability.

 

[Darklone]

Take care to limit the amount of PP spent for the save boost or the damage block to their HD... it's not spelled out, but it makes sense and does limit it somehow.

 

[Flyspeck23]

Take care to limit the amount of PP spent for the save boost or the damage block to their HD... it's not spelled out, but it makes sense and does limit it somehow.

The save boost is limited. An elan may only pay one power point, not more.

That leaves the "damage reduction which isn't quite damage reduction." Where would you put the limit? Maybe 1 (or 2) pp per character level might be a good idea...

 

[Piratecat]

Not that the rest of the book is any better.

This is what we refer to as "a bee in your bonnet." Jeez, Thanee, you're starting to sound like Diaglo discussing OD&D.

There was an interesting, long thread about the elan a week or two ago. The consensus is that people didn't agree; it's either a strong +0, a weak +1, or an average +1. I tend towards the former, myself, until I've actually seen one played.

Note that the damage soaking ability is noticeably weaker than "vigor," which gives you temporary hit points at a much more effective rate.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I really hope to see Resilience capped in the errata. I thought we learned not to leave uncapped material anywhere near psionics, precisely because you can spend 100 power points and just prevent 50 damage.

At least vigor is capped. This sounds more like the 2e Psi balance model or psychofeedback.

 

[Scion]

Comparing it to other core races it is actually pretty weak. They really get pretty much nil for real racial abilities, instead they get a couple of things that they can pay for instead.

So, each time you want to use a racial ability you have to pay a pp and an action.

Would you rather have the dwarfs +2 that works most of the time, is always on, and costs nothing. Or the halflings +1 that is always on no matter what, again costs nothing.

I've seen and done the comparisons with dwarfs and halflings, for the most part the other core races are simply better.

A huge deficit is not gaining a +2 to a stat while still getting the -2. This is a pretty severe hit almost all of the time. I have seen some people try to handwave it away, but being able to get that extra boost to stat X is huge.

All in all I think that they are an interesting race, but well on the weak side of +0, not the strong side.

As characters get higher in levels those actions become much more important, and at lower levels the cost in pp is very high.

::shrugs:: making them a +1 LA is just insane though. Compare them to the other base races and the only one this guy is really better than is maybe the halforc, and that is a bit of a tossup in some ways.