Your Exp with Psi-Chars

[Horrendos]

Hiho Everybody,

i played a long time with my party the 2nd Edition and now we switched to 3.5. I am interesting in your experience with Psi-Chars because i wanna to allow my players to use them. But we aren't so experienced with the 3.5 yet and i wanna now if they are not too overpowered abusable or etc.

What is your Experience with Psi-Chars. Are there any abusable or overpowered Points?

 

[ciaran00]

I'd be interested to know as well since we will be making the switch to 3.5e psionics soon.

ciaran

 

[Scion]

The new psi system is sortof on the low end of sucky right now unfortunately There are a lot of cool ideas, but generally psicharacters are underpar for equivalent level pc's.

Of course there are a couple high power builds, and some unbalanced stuff when taken in combination (although much much less than for wizards/sorcerers)

If you are going to use them (and personally I love psionics, so I would say do it! lol) then knocking out or modifying attack/defense modes is a good start to help clean things up. Get 'If Thoughts Could Kill' and 'Mindscapes'. Check out The Minds Eye on the wizards website often and read all of the back articles.

Tons of great ideas, and anyone could make a decent psion at that point. While at the same time still being less spatbooks than most people I've seen for any other character class (save those characters I've seen no one play )


So to sum up, there are some abuses but those are easily remedied and very very specific in how to get there. They can make just about any character you want with appropriate feat and power choices. While at the same time adding interesting flavor to the campaign. If someone feels way underpowered make another post here or on the wizards psionics board and see what people have to say. Same goes if you feel they are way overpowered, but at that point I would suggest sticking to the psionics board, people tend to give better responses about psions in general there.

At some point I may even run a campaign without clerics and wizards. Instead just go with psions of various types, it would be very interesting indeed.

 

[Nifft]

I like Psionics (specifically the "Psi Are Different" variant), and I've been throwing Psi NPCs at my PCs for some time. Also, I've played a PsiWarrior, and there's an NPC PsiWar in the current party which I DM.

My analysis is that Psions are too weak. I have some house rules to fix this up.

Psychic Warriors are just fine as-is, but my house rules keep them balanced without allowing certain specific abuses.

There's another caveat: Psi-characters are great when there are no bad guys to use Psionic Combat on them. Psi-critters are VERY strong in Psi-Combat, and Psi-Combat is a WEAKNESS of Psi-characters, not a bonus.

So, my advice is: nix Psi-Combat, and use my house rules, which I'll post in House Rules upon request.

-- N

 

[Hardhead]

There are a few broken combos out there, but other than that, Psionics is significantly weaker than magic. Mindscapes, by Bruce Cordel (same person that did the Psionic's Handbook from WotC) helps out a lot, but they're still probably a little weak even with that.

The Psion in there gets a few more PP per level, wizard-style feat progression (bonus feats at 1, 5, 10, 15, 20), and the ability to choose two "secondary disciplines" that work off of his main stat instead of their normal stat. For instance, if you're a telepath, and you choose Pshycoportation and Clairsentience as your two secondary disciplines, powers from those disciplines work of of yoru CHA now instead of your DEX and WIS.

It also introduces a rule called Power Scaling. OGL is fun:

The psionic powers subject to this rule are powers that deal a base amount of
hit point damage during a single round as their only effect, such as whitefire,
painful touch, and concussion. Hereafter these powers are called
“candidate powers.” This rule variant applies to all creatures that pay
power points to manifest psionic powers.

Any time a candidate power is manifested, a psionic character may choose to
spend 1 additional power point per 1 additional damage die; this is known as
“scaling the power.” A candidate power’s scaled number of damage dice cannot
exceed the number of original damage dice plus 5. Thus, a power that
deals 5d4 points of damage has a maximum cap of 10d4 points of damage,
at least in conjunction with this rule.

The psionic character cannot spend more power points on a scaled power
than he would spend for the highest-level power he knows. Extra power points
spent for scaling do not count toward the power-point limit for using metapsionic
feats (equal to manifester level minus 1); if a character uses
metapsionic powers, figure the power point limit as the base cost
of the power plus the additional cost from the metapsionic feat.

For example, a 12th-level psion who manifests concussion normally deals 3d6
points of damage. He can choose to pay an additional 5 power points (for a
total of 8 power points), increasing the damage potential of his concussion
power to 8d6 points of damage. If the power inflicts multiple types of damage,
increase the damage die for each damage type as equally as possible.

But besides the stuff I've mentioned, it has lots of cool new stuff, like a completly revamped (and better) psionic combat system, tons of new powers, and some of the most flavorful and interesting PrCs have seen in any product. I highly recommend it.

 

[Hardhead]

Oh yeah, don't allow Mind Feeder weapons. They're an integral part to almost all the broken combos.

 

[juliaromero]

It seems like everyone is just giving you combat related advice for them, which may be what you want. But I wanted to chime in with a different take so you can get a different perspective. While it's true that in combat situations psions are often underpowered, for general "roll playing" they can be way more powerful depending on your setting and GM style.

I'm running a Dragon Star campaign where psionics play a major roll. They are so dangerous that they are completely outlawed in the entire galaxy and it's bad to get caught if you are one (the party of course has a "secret" psion). The reason they are so good is that there are a lot of non-combat urban situations that psions fair much better in without the need of material, verbal, or somatic components (yes, I know there are feats wizards can take ...). They are generally considered harder to manage and find, and the nature and flexibility of their powers lends itself really well to out of combat situations.

Anyway, my point is just that it really depends on your DMing style and campaign setting. If it's all dungeon crawls and combat, then they will just seem like a variant sorcerer with a bit weaker powers in many situations and you won't get much "flavor" out of them. In the right setting though they add a lot of flavor and variation to a game.

 

[Simplicity]

Psionicists in 3.0 are good if you want to roleplay someone gets their ass handed to them repeatedly, and multi-classing as a psionicist is the kiss of death for a character.

 

[Hardhead]

The reason they are so good is that there are a lot of non-combat urban situations that psions fair much better in without the need of material, verbal, or somatic components (yes, I know there are feats wizards can take ...).

Bah. Psions still have manifestations (easy ways to tell that they're manifesting a power). Sure, you can take Hide Power, but there are FIVE, manifestations, and you have to take Hide Power FIVE times to hide 'em. That, compared to only three things wizards have to worry about: verbal, somatic, material. And material is arguable, since in some cases that can be hidden by getting out the component ahead of time. *And* Eschew Materials doesn't cost a higher level slot. AND the others have useful secondary purpsoes (Still Spell lets you cast in armor/a grapple, Silent Spell is less useful, admitedly, but let's you cast in a Silence spell or when gagged).

And *all* of the Hide Powers cost an extra level. In summary: it's almost impossible for a Psion to hide all of his manifestations. The best he can do is pick two or three that cover the majority of the powers he uses. And that's still a waste of feats when Psions by default dont' get any bonus feats.

If you want to read minds and dominate people secretly, wizards are actually better. Just take Still Spell, Silent Spell, and Eschew Materials with your bonus feats.

 

[dvvega]

I allow psionics in my campaign and have done so since the 1st edition Psionics. Even the 2nd edition ones.

I've never had any issues with balance, or effectiveness of the characters created by my players. In fact I have found that most of the complaints people have about psionics is firmly focused on the "power gamer" type.

But of course the truth of anything is in the testing. I suggest you try the system out for a while, a sort of "playtest" for yourselves and see if you like it.