XPH: Elan Balanced?

[Piratecat]

That seems like an interesting and reasonable analysis, Thanee. The elan will also have more "peaks" in combat oriented games. Games that involve proportionately more social skills usage will doubly penalize them, because they're getting a charisma penalty along with less opportunities to use their "don't die" powers.

 

[Thanee]

That seems like an interesting and reasonable analysis, Thanee.

Thank you!

But don't forget, that it hasn't been playtested...
Uhm... no, no, I'm not teasing ya... reeeaaaaally!

Bye
Thanee

 

[James McMurray]

Resilience allows you to spend power points to prevent damage on a 1pp = 2 damage basis.

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?

Its possible that he would have died. But my players know my penchant for not holding back, and its also very possible that the character would have had psionic body, for 6 more hit points (more than he ever stopped with resilience).

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

There were 5 characters, two of which were Elan. The session contained three large battles. In the first battle one Elan used the ability to stay alive (he was critted when already low on hp). He still ended up dropping, and only took one more opponent with him because of the resources spent on the resilience.

In the third battle both elans used resilience to remain standing. They did manage to take a few more enemies with them, but still went down.

Resilience was a factor, but it was not overpowered compared to the other characters (the Maened's both took out enemies with their energy rays and strength boosts, and the Xephs both used their bursts to good effe ct as well).

So far it has showed itself to be a useful ability, but not overpowered. It is definitely nice to not have died, but any race with a +2 dex or small size would have stayed standing most of the time, and a character with both would have stayed standing almost all of the time.

As the levels rise and more power points become available the ability itself will be more useful, so we'll see what we see.

 

[Piratecat]

It's fine if you don't agree with me, Thanee, although I find the teasing to be annoying.

It may help to explain my perspective. I came to Eric's site almost a year before 3e launched, right back near the beginning. In that time I've seen my own prejudices and analysis of the rules we were playtesting, and I've seen literally thousands of people comment on rules before they got to play them. And you know what? A tremendous quantity of people had first impressions that simply didn't hold up under actual play. I include myself in this number. For example, a multitude of people decried the new edition and panicked as each new change was announced, then found that they actually liked it when they finally got to play 3e.

For a more recent example, look at the brouhaha over this past year when the mystic theurge was held up as a walking disaster area. Despite the horrible first impressions, the class turned out to be fairly innocous in actual play. Go dig up the threads on that if you want some fun.

For me, seeing enough of this over several years has made the pattern fairly clear. I've reached the conclusion that no matter how emphatic someone might feel about a new rule or rulebook, keeping an open mind might very well mean that they find out their first impressions were mistaken. As a result, I lend a lot more weight to the opinion of people who have actually played a new rule set. Analysis is all well and good -- and I think your analysis is a lot more rigorous and complete than most -- but my experience has shown that most people just aren't as good as they think they are at academically gauging the balance of new rules.

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I thought this was worth addressing.

 

[Plane Sailing]

A related issue I've noticed is that certain theoretical abuses of various systems simply haven't arisen in any of the games I play or run simply because the combination of DM's adventures and player characters available don't lend themselves to certain corner-case scenarios. In other words, our real play has typically not led to abusive situations even though it was certainly theoretically possible to create abusive combinations of classes, spells and feats.

If it was a matter of international competitions with big money prizes it might bother me more, but as it stands we just have great fun together (and occasionally decide to introduce either a rule or a gentlemans agreement should an issue actually arise one way or another).

Cheers

 

[Thanee]

It's fine if you don't agree with me, Thanee, although I find the teasing to be annoying.

Sorry!

For a more recent example, look at the brouhaha over this past year when the mystic theurge was held up as a walking disaster area. Despite the horrible first impressions, the class turned out to be fairly innocous in actual play. Go dig up the threads on that if you want some fun.

Not necessary, I have read some of that stuff, and I think always argued, that the MT is fine, because of the spell level hits.

I've reached the conclusion that no matter how emphatic someone might feel about a new rule or rulebook, keeping an open mind might very well mean that they find out their first impressions were mistaken. As a result, I lend a lot more weight to the opinion of people who have actually played a new rule set.

That's absolutely fine.

Just to add this little bit in... It's also quite annoying, if a lot of people (not meaning you specifically) reply to some arguments, which (IMHO) are well-founded, only saying "you can't say that without playtesting!" - stated as an absolutum, no other reasons given.

Analysis is all well and good -- and I think your analysis is a lot more rigorous and complete than most --

Thanks!

but my experience has shown that most people just aren't as good as they think they are at academically gauging the balance of new rules.

I completely agree with that, btw.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Darklone]

You mean it's balanced because of the duration?

I'm not so sure about that. Mlevel*5 temporary hitpoints ... while the psion causes damage like hell now...

My tactic against a psion would be to annoy him, then run away.

 

[Piratecat]

Just to add this little bit in... It's also quite annoying, if a lot of people (not meaning you specifically) reply to some arguments, which (IMHO) are well-founded, only saying "you can't say that without playtesting!" - stated as an absolutum, no other reasons given.

I'll try not to do this in the future. Heck, I try not to do it now, but I might not always succeed.

 

[Piratecat]

You mean it's balanced because of the duration?
...
My tactic against a psion would be to annoy him, then run away.

That's actually a fantastic tactic against any party. I have my smart bad guys bluff the PCs into gearing up for a major combat, then not showing up for 10 minutes per level. Drives 'em nuts.

As far as the psiwarrior is concerned, all but one of my PC's powers are now 1 minute per level. It definitely changes my strategy.

To get back on topic, I have a cool character concept of an elderly and very famous general/warlord (maybe evil) who becomes an elan. The process changes him away from evil, and I'd pick him up at 1st level with all of the baggage of his past life but with none of the martial skill that he had previously possessed. He'd have to beg out of bar fights, for one thing. There's a lot of interesting plot hooks in that.

 

[Darklone]

Which powerful guy closing death would not consider becoming an Elan?

I'm just wondering why he shouldn't keep his riches. RP reason, not balance reasons.