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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scion" data-source="post: 1507443" data-attributes="member: 5777">i find some of your facts rather silly, but I will try to wander around in them for a bit. Stating at first though that I have seen no power issues between the psion and the arcane types just yet. If anything the psion is currently much weaker than the wizard in the party, and exceedingly weak compared to the cleric.As on a one by one basis? I am assuming you mean 3.5 spells. Since many 3.5 spells have been nerfed into uselessness then I will take this as a Bad Thing (tm).Psions are, by their very nature, specialists. As such their main powers should be the equal or better than the arcane counterpart, while the general ones should be equal or slightly worse (in general). Mainly it seems like the psonic powers are pretty close (at the very base levels, when they are first recieved) but are much worse in certain areas most of the time, while not really excelling in other areas. so for this point I think that the arcanes are actually way ahead. Especially since arcane types have a huge selection to choose from, and therefore automatically have the chance of getting spells that are just plain better than the psionic counterparts.I dont agree with this in the way that you are presenting it however. Generally an arcane spell of lower levels will be much more durable in a few ways than the psionic spell manifested unaugmented. After all, once you start augementing then it isnt a spell of the same level anymore and the comparison changes.This does give the psion an advantage over the sorc in some ways, and a huge detriment in others. Given the vastness of the number of spells that a sorc can cast in comparison, along with the above, the versitility vs power issue is hard, but I would still point well in favor of the sorc for this one.Lots more spells to choose from. Having to pay a feat to gain an extra power isnt an issue here, it does not help the fact that there are many more spells than powers.In other words this is two facts, one of which muddies the other. The second line has no real bearing at all however, as the sorc/wiz have effectively the exact same feat at their disposal. So just kill the second misleading line, and keep the first. Which points towards the arcane counterpart winning by a large margin.An incredible drawback believe me ;/ The psion can boost himself, but most of the time he doesnt want to use those boosts as they will make him have to get up close and personal. Or their durations are just too short to matter, but this is a problem for both caster types.on an immediate, short term basis? yes. But the sorc gets to use his spells a total of many more times per day. That is one of the tradeoff points. Kindof like with the bard, they get a good amount of spells, but cant cast all of them.This is especially true with bonus spells, psions get a whole lot less bonus spells for a high stat. The sorc gets an incredible amount.So psion = more powers known sometimes, able to cast the higher level ones a few more times but then have nothing left over.sorc = a few less spells known sometimes, able to cast the higher level ones a few less times, but having tons and tons of spells of all of the other levels waiting to help.When the sorc can cast double the amount of 'pp' per day as the psion they should have to give up something for that huge amount of extra power yes?For just 5th - 9th, with no bonus spells yet, the sorc has the equivalent of 390 pp, and all of those scale for free. The psion only has 343.Assuming a prime stat of 30 (not unreasonable at all), the psion gets a bonus of 100 pp. The sorc gets the equivalent of 121 bonus pp. For each extra +2 the psion gets an extra 10 pp, for each extra 2 the sorc gets a minimum of much, much more.The extra '3 - 4x' as many spells known simply comes from the delayed progression of the sorc. Now, many people, including myself, dont understand why the sorc even has this delayed progression. So that is a major problem for them, but just because that is a problem that should be fixed does not mean that the psion should be held to the same bad standard. Especially with what I have just outlined above. Using your same logic the wizard has many, many too many spells (many is a fun word <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ) as they have that 4x base as many as well! Up to an unbounded multiplier more, but that doesnt really matter, just the base parts. As both the sorc and psion could gain extras of different slots.The psion does still have displays however, so they merely trade in one kind for another kind. Plus, a good amount of powers require exp instead of the very easy to get components or focuses. I would much rather pay some gold rather than exp, any day of the week. That is an incredibly huge penalty. So large that I have thus far not seen anyone take any of the powers that take exp to manifest. effectively that cuts out whole swaths of powers, making the amount of powers to choose from go down even farther.If we are going to count feats as such though then the sorc has a 'ton' more feats than the psion. After all, sorcs know all simple weapons.Plus, since only spells with somatic components are effected by spell failure anyway, you could make a sorc who doesnt have to worry about armor at all. Effectively having the exact same 'bonus' as the psion, guess the sorc actually has a few of these virtual feats after all.Along with psionic focus expenditure being the most horrible thing since moldy bread. Intersting idea, bad implementation.And only specific powers have augementation, and the ones that do only have a very minor amount of augmentation. It is the costly, and limited, form of scaling. If your sorc picks up feat X he gets to use it wherever he wants, but the psion doesnt get anywhere near that latitude with his choices, it is merely yet another cost to be paid to try to keep up with the sorc.True enough, but try to get wotc to give a good reason why they cant and mostly all you get is sputtering. Once again, taking design flaws of the sorc and trying to make the psion live up to them as well (or down to them) is just a bad move. Better is to try to get things straightened out properly for the sorc, as he should be able to do it as well.More flexibility? Depends on how you look at it I suppose. A 5th level spell might be just as effective in many cases as that psions 5the level power, after he augements it properly. Sorc 0 through whatever spells actually stay much more useful at higher levels as well. So, the psion must keep on augmenting and getting new powers just to keep up with the sorc and his selection of current spells and those that have come before. This isnt always universally true of course, but it is true enough to counter the 'fact'.As I have shown above this isnt exactly true, the sorc, when his spells are converted to pp, is way ahead. So much so that it isnt even funny <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> On another board someone compared the total amount of damage dice each was able to do in a given day at high level with a good stat. The psion was at around 180 and the sorc was pushing 400. So if all you care about is sheer damage potential the sorc wins out against two psions of the same level!better skills? one can only hope! the sorc gets it pretty royally here, although he still beats out the fighter.The sorc does really need to get a couple of feats here and there, but again, that is a problem with the sorc. The psion should get the feats, so perhaps you should be saying that the sorc needs the boost, not that the psion needs to be pulled down?Havent seen it in action, it looks nice, but broken? We shall see as time goes on, for now.. who knows? It might be too campaign dependent to mean anything.My responses about things to change makes this more true <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />This however is a huge leap. The psion is better at some things sometimes, the sorc is generally better overall at more things. (and by things I of course mean damage <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ). The psion gets to use metamagic faster, but the sorc still does it 'much' better. The psion gets to augment, but the sorc gets a much wider selection so can pick up spells that are more useful to begin with, and stay as such throghout the characters carear.Having to expend focus, and the incredible difficulty in getting it back, is a huge limiting factor for the psion. Plus having to spend so many points to keep their powers up to par in useage.Overall I think the new psion is a pretty decent improvement, there are only a few things I would change to make them more useful.The sorc though has always needed a lot of help, not so much in the power department so much as in the versitility and interesting department. Mostly they are just bland, and require a lot of careful planning. Just a few simple changes (bonus feats, a couple of intersting perks, quicken working properly, couple of extra skills) and they would be good to go.This whole thread seems to boil down to, 'sorcs really suck, so lets make every other caster suck too!'. Arcane magic in general took a lot of major, and most unwarrented, hits in 3.5 and psionics followed suit. They have already taken enough hits for the team, time for them to get some boosts anyway.</blockquote>

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