XPH: Elan Balanced?

[Stalker0]

Well, I got to go with the acid test on this one.

When my most munchkin player took but a few minutes look, he immediately announced his next race would be an elan. That got my radar going

Well I will have two characters playing elan's in an upcoming campaign. I decided to cap the resilency to 20 damage soaked a day, enough for that emergency save but not an all day thing. I'll see how it turns out.

 

[James McMurray]

LOL, you argue a power is broken by specifically interpreting that power the most broken way possible.

Only if you could care less whether the power is actually broken or not, and just want to win an argument. If you're actually looking at a power to determine its balance, you'll probably want to be a bit more honest.

 

[James McMurray]

Some play experience to add to the discussion:

Yesterday was the first session of my all psion campaign. The characters are:

Maenad Wilder
Maened Psychic Warrior
Xeph Soul Knife
Elan Psion (Egoist)
Elan Psion (Kineticist)

The two Elans used resilience frequently, and it did manage to leave them standing once (at the cost of 2pp each time). It also saved the Kineticist from hitting -10 once (but didn't keep him standing). At least at 2nd level (the level the party is currently at) Resilience was not a major factor.

The Wilder stayed standing longer than anyone because of his ability to Wild Surge for Vigor. Although everyone was using Vigor, the Wilder's gave him one extra hit for one pp, wheras the Elans were spending 2pp to stop almost as much damage.

As they gain levels I'll continue to update this to see how much more effective the abilities become, especially in comparison to the Wilder's use of Vigor (which next level will be 3pp for 25hp instead of an Elan's 8pp for 25hp.

I should note that there were a few chances to use the save boost, but it was never used (none of them were in combat, nor were they saves that the players knew in character were being made). Thus I've got no experience with that to relate yet. Next session should have some more data.

I kept track of the ACs that were hit, and one of the 4 times that resilience was used, a +2 racial bonus to dexterity would have negated the entire attack. One other time a halfling's +2 to AC would have negated the entire attack.

 

[Piratecat]

Excellent. It always bugs me when people argue balance without actually seeing how something functions in play. I'm glad you're doing this.

 

[Thanee]

Excellent. It always bugs me when people argue balance without actually seeing how something functions in play. I'm glad you're doing this.

With some abilities, that's really hard to see (as I also stated above) without playtesting them. But that's surely not true for everything. Many abilities can be related to others (already playtested ones).

And don't forget, that playtesting only adds one example. A single example is not very meaningful by itself usually. Altho a complete campaign could probably show quite a bit, if the players actually use most of the stuff in question (best in many different ways). Regular play is only something like pseudo-playtesting (because it's not focused on exploring specific abilities), but by chance some issues might come up there.

Anyways, it's quite obvious, that those abilities are very powerful, but the Elan doesn't have much else, so that's the hard-to-judge part here, how those compare to other races benefits.

Bye
Thanee

 

[two]

Some play experience to add to the discussion:

Yesterday was the first session of my all psion campaign. The characters are:

Maenad Wilder
Maened Psychic Warrior
Xeph Soul Knife
Elan Psion (Egoist)
Elan Psion (Kineticist)

The two Elans used resilience frequently, and it did manage to leave them standing once (at the cost of 2pp each time). It also saved the Kineticist from hitting -10 once (but didn't keep him standing). At least at 2nd level (the level the party is currently at) Resilience was not a major factor.

The Wilder stayed standing longer than anyone because of his ability to Wild Surge for Vigor. Although everyone was using Vigor, the Wilder's gave him one extra hit for one pp, wheras the Elans were spending 2pp to stop almost as much damage.

As they gain levels I'll continue to update this to see how much more effective the abilities become, especially in comparison to the Wilder's use of Vigor (which next level will be 3pp for 25hp instead of an Elan's 8pp for 25hp.

I should note that there were a few chances to use the save boost, but it was never used (none of them were in combat, nor were they saves that the players knew in character were being made). Thus I've got no experience with that to relate yet. Next session should have some more data.

I kept track of the ACs that were hit, and one of the 4 times that resilience was used, a +2 racial bonus to dexterity would have negated the entire attack. One other time a halfling's +2 to AC would have negated the entire attack.

Because I don't know the powers, and don't own the book, break this down for me if you would.

It seems like one character that was an Elan would have died if he was a human (by hitting -10) and a few others also used the Elan HP healing power to keep standing/conscious, thus saving being, well, unconscious and maybe dead soon. Is this a fair summary?

How many battles if I can ask, did it take before these Elan powers became useful? 1, 2, 3, 20?

I still maintain, provisionally, that a race giving an ability that can stop HP death (the most common form by far) is worth bunches. But, time will tell. Keep telling up how it goes, please!

I'd be interested in a rough tally of how many times Char X or Char Y did NOT die because they were Elan, or did NOT go unconscious. Perhaps a percentage vs. number of fights, for example Saved Death 1 fight out of every 5 on average, saved Unconscious 1 out of 3? Etc? If it's not a huge hassle?

 

[reiella]

Spend 50 PP's to stop 100 points of damage? Sure, it's 50 PP's. What's the alternative? Oh, death. Done. Spent. No-brainer.

Save vs. a debilitating save? Spend some points to increase your odds of making the save by 40-50%? Done. Do this for 2-3 saves and statistics say "it made a difference." Big difference, as in, being turned to stone/killed/disintigrated or not being turned to stone/killed/etc.

Well, erm...

Fun few sets of comments :

1) And of course, remember the 'cost' of being an immediate action. It keeps you from performing 'swift' actions on your next turn [or any immediate actions until the end of your next turn].

2) You'd need a spellcraft check [or psicraft, as appropiate] to identify a spell as being "a debilating save"... Just something that seems to be skimmed over. And even with the RAW and Psionic/Magic are the Same, the Elan Psionic Class in question would have to take a Cross Class skill [Spellcraft], in order to be able to know "when" to apply that benefit.

With the inherit 'limits' on "Per Day usage" and "Immediate Action"-ness, I don't think that they're significantly 'better' than a dwarf. I suspect they may just be more of a Paper Psion.

At a glance, if a problem occurs, I may just plop the manifester level cap down [and let the elan suffer at low levels].

 

[Thanee]

2) You'd need a spellcraft check [or psicraft, as appropiate] to identify a spell as being "a debilating save"... Just something that seems to be skimmed over. And even with the RAW and Psionic/Magic are the Same, the Elan Psionic Class in question would have to take a Cross Class skill [Spellcraft], in order to be able to know "when" to apply that benefit.

Why wouldn't Psicraft work here with the transparency rule applied?

Bye
Thanee

 

[Darklone]

Hehehe.

"Vigor is broken!!"

Hehehe.

 

[Thanee]

It was in 3.0 + ITCK, it isn't anymore.

Bye
Thanee