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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Thanee" data-source="post: 1503739" data-attributes="member: 478">The comment about the 10th level was exactly meaning that. You can't just pick one level, you have to compare overall balance. And I'm sure that the psion will win out at most levels - and that's if you ignore many of their inherent advantages in the comparison and just compare their flexibility, manifestings per day, manifestings per round and effect of their manifestings compared to spells.I'm pretty certain, that the psion will also outshine the sorcerer in raw damage dealing, if you do that, most of the time.That is in damage per time, of course. The psion will be depleted quicker, if he does that.The sorcerer will be able to do more damage over a longer time frame, but that includes many highly ineffective spells, that - once the real ones are depleted - simply won't make a difference anymore.All in all, the sorcerer will be able to cast more spells per day than the psion can manifest powers. However, the additional spells are all of a pretty low level then. While those surely are useful still, they are not the ones that have a huge impact. The psion has the ability to manifest more (or even many more) high level powers, which easily balances their lower number of manifestations per day. What do you think is better? One 9th level power or one 6th level spell PLUS one 3rd level spell? That's basically what we are comparing here.The ability to unleash more powerful powers is not to be underestimated. With all the stuff they get, psions are able to manifest powers worth a total of 48 PP per round (costing them 54 PP per round plus a one-time expenditure of 12 PP) at 20th level (starting with the 2nd, in the 1st they can "only" do their normal 20 PP plus the 12 PP for the quickened Schism)! There's a reason, why haste has been changed in 3.5! Being able to throw out more of one's powers in a shorter time frame is a huge advantage, that's exactly why haste has been toned down. Again, this will lead to a quick expenditure of the PP, but it will also lead to quicker defeat of the opposition in combat, so the overall expenditure is not really that much higher in the end. And this is a very extreme example as well, you don't have to go that high, it just demonstrates that they can go that high!Anyways, here's even an example, using your "sorcerers can throw X fireballs a day" guideline. Let's see how many "fireballs" the psion can throw per day, if they are not augmenting to the max, but only stay at the same level of the fireball.Level / Sorcerer # of CL10 Fireballs (avg.dam. 35) / Psion # of ML8 Energy Balls (avg.dam. 36)10th / 17 / 1415th / 34 / 3520th / 52 / 6110th: Int/Cha 22 (excluding Torc)15th: Int/Cha 24 (including Torc)20th: Int/Cha 28 (including Torc)Yes, energy ball is a 4th level power which needs a feat, but as has been shown already, this is no problem for psions comparing to sorcerers.Not so bad in direct comparison, eh?Ok, now after these are done, the psion won't have the same number of 1st and 2nd level powers the sorcerer does have in spells left. It wouldn't be fair to forget about those.Also note, that this is highly downsizing what the psion can do with the energy ball. They could easily do a lot more damage per time, if they wished to spend more points on them (and they can spend quite a few more)!Of course, the sorcerer will have better spells than fireball at those levels (altho castable from fewer slots than above), the sorcerer will have to dedicate precious high level spells known to those, the psion does not need to learn much besides energy ball to keep up. If the example would be expanded to the actual scaling (that is using higher level slots for higher level spells), the sorcerer will do more damage over time for sure, fireball isn't really effective at 15th level or even 20th level. But that neglects some facts like energy resistance (the psion doesn't have any problem with those), Evasion (psion? switch to fortitude save), and such. The sorcerer needs feats or other spells to adapt to such challenges. That's the disadvantage the sorcerer gets for being a spontaneous caster. The psion doesn't have this disadvantage to this extent.And... psion powers are generally weaker than arcane spells!?I'd say, that while psions surely have less powers to choose from, their individual powers easily live up to corresponding spells (in fact they seem to be even better most of the time). Sure some of those are on the discipline lists, but then again Expanded Knowledge allows to pick them (and they have the feats to do so as well).You don't really want to tell me, that fireball (your prime example) is better than energy ball (yes, it's 4th level, but that is no big difference in the long run... some spells/powers are always +/-1 level (i.e. dominate is -1 for psions)), do you?I'm pretty sure, that the psions powers are not weaker than the arcane spells. But since they are roughly equal, they cannot have like a dozen other advantages with absolutely no disadvantage to balance these.Psychic Warrior: Havn't looked at that too closely yet, but since the PW doesn't have the same huge advantages (and is not so similar to the wizard and sorcerer), I don't have such a big problem with them as I have with the psion. Publishing a class (the psion), that is so much better than a very similar core class, just isn't right.ByeThanee</blockquote>

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