xorial's page

This is a "Can't please everybody" argument. Some of the people screaming for their fave classes to be redone are the same that complain that the game isn't really backwards compatible. It IS backwards compatible. The thing that makes it backwards compatible is the ability to take all of those features from all of those Complete (Insert Type) Books and, with very little modification, use them as is in your game. Personally, while I liked allot of stuff in the Complete (Insert Type) Books, they were full of JUNK. The good stuff was invalidated by WoTC by hardly ever actually using it in anything but the books. Allot of people like the Scout. I liked the Scout (and I agree that he can be modeled using the new rogue quite nicely). But tell me how many times after the Complete Adventurer did you see the stat blocks of various PC classed NPCs actually use the Scout class. They would be labeled "Hobgoblin scouts," but were statted out as rogues or rangers. So, PLEASE, Paizo give us classes, and PrCs, that will ACTUALLY get used in other products. That will mean less PrC filler, less forced classes (Warmage is a fine example), and fewer lame rules.

Oracle:

This seems to be a downgraded version of the 3.5 favored soul as many people have mentioned. It needs a bit more to tow the line with the standard base classes that saw increase in base power level rather than a decrease.

One mechanic that I like, and would like to have seen done for Bards is altering the 'spells known' from a -life long choice- to a -daily choice-.

To whit: each day the Oracle receives his 'vision' of his spells known for the day when he refreshes his spell slots.

I think this will properly address needs for 'fixes' for which parties turn to a divine caster and recompense the Oracle's small number of known spells compared to the 3.5 favored soul which was easily less powerful than 3.5 cleric.

I would also keep them on par with the cleric in terms of armor & weapon proficiencies, BAB and saves.

-James

I agree. This class just screams for it to be something of a tribal shaman type, or the kooky village seer, or the local elementalist. Another concept would be a dwarf with the speak in tongues curse and Stone 'Focus/Mystery'. Be a major earth elemental summoner, always jabbering in Terran almost as often as dwarven or common.

Good catch phase: "Never argue with the rocks, they are ALWAYS more hard headed than you can imagine. There is a reason the mountain is said to be unyielding."

In allot of circumstances, I think I would rather have oracles in my games, rather than druids. They make more sense for the druidic faiths than the wild-shaping class we have.

I mentioned it earlier, but I'll say it again. The Oracle really screams allot of roleplaying options. I am the one stuck GMing, lol, but i would really LOVE to play an oracle. I cane see a Dwarven Oracle with Battle Focus and the Spirits Curse. Would also fit in great in the Ebberon setting for a Valenar Elf.

Another thought. Let's assume for a bit that the Psi System will be Vancian. Given that, will there be a need for everything in the SRD? Will we have a Wilder? A Psychic Warrior? The Psychic Warrior could very well be a psionic Eldritch Knight PrC. The Soul Blade will most likely stay, since it really doesn't need psionics to be ported over. I'm not sure about the Wilder. Some of the PrCs from the XPH could be opened for all spellcasters, while some would stay just for the Psions.

Blazej wrote:
My own concept for what a Vancian and/or spontaneous casting Psion would look like... The Psion would be like the Wizard in the way spells were prepared and cast. Then they would have Augment Points (similar to those in a Monk's ki pool). Like the Monk's points, the Psion would be able to spend them for small boosts, in this case it would be to increase the power of one of his spells.

Xorial wrote:
Actually, with the predilection for equating what the monk does with some sort of latent psionics, this would be a good idea. You could even make them stack. This would add a whole Eastern Mysticism feel to the system.

We just discussed something like this, seeker. Keep the regular metapsionics in line with metamagic. Use the Augment Points to do the things that are not quite the same. Maybe spend a point to combine lower level slots into higher level slots. Power some of the feats that used to use the Psionic Focus. All sorts of psi stuff.

My own concept for what a Vancian and/or spontaneous casting Psion would look like... The Psion would be like the Wizard in the way spells were prepared and cast. Then they would have Augment Points (similar to those in a Monk's ki pool). Like the Monk's points, the Psion would be able to spend them for small boosts, in this case it would be to increase the power of one of his spells.

Sometimes the books tell you to refer to X monster in the bestiary. I dont how this would be any different. I dont have every spell memorized, especially since Pathfinder changed a lot of them, so whether I were using a psion or a caster I would still have to go back to the book until I know Pathfinder as well as I knew 3.5.

Not being snarky, but that was the main point put out from the beginning by either James or Jason.

I think we all need to take a collective breath here. Most of the posters are each arguing point where nobody on the other side is willing to switch. As the lawyers would say, "Let's agree to disagree."

Right now, both sides could very well switch to:

TASTES GREAT!!

LESS FILLING!!

TASTES GREAT!!

LESS FILLING!!

TASTES GREAT!!

LESS FILLING!!

TASTES GREAT!!

LESS FILLING!!

Lets face it. No matter what, some of you are NOT going to be happy. I say go Vancian & take some mechanics from Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved on spell weaving & be done with the whole mess. This is making me just hope they NEVER do a Psionics Handbook.

First impressions:
Cavalier is pretty much what I would expect for the class, given the history of cavaliers in D&D.

Oracle. All I can say is AWESOME. I take back any & ALL complaints as to the name of the class. From reading it, I would say the Oracle is the PERFECT name. I already have visions of an NPC Oracle that is an old man with the spirit curse and battle foci. He would be like the Irishman off of the movie Braveheart. Arguing with the spirits and seemingly talking to himself all the time, lol. Better than the battle foci, the NPC could be a dwarf with the stone foci. Better yet, Fizban from Dragonlance with a Flame Foci.

"What was that spell again? Oh yes......FIREBALL!"

Something that always gets me, and I haven't read the rules in a long time, I thought that the MAXIMUM number of power points a psionic character is allowed to use at one time was equal to his manifester level. THAT rules out spending 56 PP on one manifestation.

Set, everything you posted seems balanced enough. Maybe you need to post a completely off the wall mechanic, balanced or not, to get some response, lol. My only problem is that while the 3.5e warlock was favorable, I just didn't get that excited about it, or see a niche for it to fill.

Concerning balance. The main thing I have is meshing with current rules. Already said my piece on that subject. Now, concerning true game balance. I figure that ANY system that splits the people into nearly equal groups that argue in favor of being balance or unbalanced is therefore balanced. If too many people think it is fine, then it is usually too good. If too many say it is overpowered, it probably is. If it causes a firestorm of balance arguments, then it is just fine. Doesn't mean everybody wants it, just is probably a balanced set of rules.

I had a thought about creating something that was similar to a warlock, that was a class that got a sorcerer bloodline and cleric domains. The idea is the ONLY spells they have come from the bloodline & domains. Use the powers & very limited spells more often.

wraithstrike wrote:

Blazej wrote:

...

They are not without backing. These sentiments have been expressed on the boards. Once you take care of the rules and the fluff what else is left?

Thank you Wraithstrike. I appreciate it. :)

As for balance, my take has always been the XPH was always balanced as long as is was the only 'spellcasting' system used. Great for a modern/scifi setting. Not really unbalanced with Vancian rules, so much as too different from them, while remaining close to them. They just never seem to mesh well. Good argument for a spell point system all around, but not likely to happen.

EDIT: YEAH, first post on the lucky 13th page. :D

I guess this is a rules topic. My question is about the mechanics of space travel a defined by the universe that is the default for the core rules. I know I can change it for my universe, but I was just trying to confirm that the default assumes a basic SciFi set of mechanics for space travel, and not a Spelljammer type.

Paizo might not be looking to rehash something, as much as to get a feel for the OGC that is popular enough to dip into in some of their own products. Why get any company to republish whole products, when the only thing used out of them was (for example) Chpt 3, Chpt 6, and the last 3 paragraphs in Chpt 8. I have heard, and done so myself, of buying a book and basically using 10 pages of material, out of 150.

On another note, there are a TON of articles from Dragon Mag that I WISH were OGC.

ProfessorCirno wrote:

And for that matter, I'm not sure who the non-point system is aimed at. The people who love psionics love the point system, and thus won't buy it. The people who hate psionics will just go on hating it, and thus won't buy it. It's a product aimed at a non-existant market.

It's mainly aimed for Paizo's convenience. They want to present Psionic NPCs in modules with no more work or page space needed than to present any other spellcaster. So exit 3.5 psi, hello Vancian psionic.

[thread hijack] Really doesn't matter. My fighter can take out any of them with his Katana & 3 strips of Bacon, lol. [/thread hijack]

Overlook my spelling no spellcheck on here but, your makeing the same mistake.

A level 1 spell even using meta magic to use up a higher level slot is still a level 1 spell

A level 1 power useing more points to boost it is still a level 1 power

Magic missle is maxed at 5 missles say you waste an maximaize feat on it taking up a 4th level slot your max damage is 25 thats it.

True it's a bad use of a level 4 slot, but thats the point. If it's a level one ablity it is still a level 1 ablity no matter how many points or how high a slot you use for it.

Now in the same SRD there are wizard spell points but they are limited to 232 points at 20th and may not enhance spells

See thats an issue even with wizards useing spellpoints they just can not put out the same power into a level 1 ablity

Xorial wrote:

My best friend likes the XPH, and believe it or not, I do too. BUT, I can get the psi flavor from a properly made sorcerer. I believe telepathy would be better for a Charisma based character, than Intelligence. My friend doesn't abuse the rules. The closest he ever did, was MY idea. He likes playing rangers too, and never uses spellcasting part of the class. I let him stack his Psi Warrior levels with the Ranger's caster levels as manifester levels. Never hurt game play. He is about the only one to really multiclass, or even consider taking a PrC.

Hey, that's a really cool idea there. I like it. I may have to give that a try in some of our group's games. My brother may like it a lot actually, since he's a big fan of the psychic warriors (his favorite being an orcish psychic warrior named Brufus). ^_^

We're still playing with some of the Beta PF rules (partially 'cause we haven't scraped up enough money to buy the core rulebooks, and partially 'cause we like some of the beta-stuff more than what apparently made it into their SRD). So a half-orc (which in PF-Beta had +2 str, +2 wis, -2 int) really just begs to be a psychic warrior. >_^

Of course, his character was an actual orc (not half-orc), but he'll probably like the idea even more then. In our campaign, most of the "evil races" are placed a little differently on the totem pole. Stuff like orcs, hobgoblins, goblins, kobolds, lizardfolk, and so forth are playable, with good, neutral, and evil tribes or communities of each.

** spoiler omitted **...

So how was it that the magic missile dealt 220 damage?

Have any of you here read tallforadwarf's PDF for psionics? He took the SRD classes, and Pathfiderized them, and did a pretty good job. No, it is NOT cannon, but I think you guys really need to look at it. It is pretty good work that I think could be really nice as a focusing point for those that MAY end up sticking to the SRD psionics. I have the PDF, if you can't find the links to it.

Psionics PSI_3P_UPDATE ver1.1.

xorial wrote:

Look, you want to charop, to build the character you like, fine. Maybe that is were you are missing my point. I never said it is wrong for a player to want to pick the fastest way to get into the PrC they want, with the most benefits for that character. I do that, too. I am talking about the RABID charop players that want to 'beat' the system. If you can understand that, and come down off you soapbox, maybe you will understand my point.

Hey, Xorial, I'm sorry if we got off on the wrong foot. Let me try to better explain myself.

I understood what you meant. I know there are those that try to "beat the system", and I don't condone it either. However, connecting that to the 3.5 psionics system seems wrong to me, because they do it with core as well. I mean, there's a reason nicknames and terms like CoDzilla exist. You don't hear about PsiZilla. While some might try to break the system by trying to figure out exploits in the Psi rules, many many more people have done so with core. When 3.5 came out, they had nerfed a lot of fighter feats and the way they work with each other (as opposed to 3.0) because of exploitations like you're describing. Ever heard of the "bag o' rats" trick? Basically, it involved whirlwind attack + cleave with a lot of rats. Alternatively, you had your wizard pop out 1d4+1 level 1 summon monsters around the party's fighter, and he uses Whirlwind Attack to attack the big bad evil guy with a full BAB attack, and cut down all the summon monsters, only to get another full BAB attack against the BBEG for each summon he killed.

Even by trying to prevent it by making it so you can't use feats like Cleave and Whirlwind attack together (further diminishing the option for what would have otherwise been a fine strategy in regular non-cheesed play) the abuses still exist. Now, instead, you still summon or get a lot of low-AC nothing monsters who the fighter can kill with all his iterative attacks, and then attack the BBEG with what amounts to +20/+20/+20/+20.

Now, I...

My best friend likes the XPH, and believe it or not, I do too. BUT, I can get the psi flavor from a properly made sorcerer. I believe telepathy would be better for a Charisma based character, than Intelligence. My friend doesn't abuse the rules. The closest he ever did, was MY idea. He likes playing rangers too, and never uses spellcasting part of the class. I let him stack his Psi Warrior levels with the Ranger's caster levels as manifester levels. Never hurt game play. He is about the only one to really multiclass, or even consider taking a PrC.

By the way, the above argument over the use of that psionic power proves a couple of things. The Psionics rules are NOT that simple. It also proves how different the system is from Core. My point is made for me. It is different enough to put off allot of GMs. Since GMs are the ones buying a majority of the rulebooks, you have to pay attention to that detail. Once you learn the system, yes, it becomes second nature. BUT, you can't force anybody to learn a new system. I will point you to 4e, then say look at Pathfinder. Most don't like the new system, so are sticking to 3.5e. I can't force you to like whatever Paizo puts out, just as you can't force the ones who don't like XPH to suddenly like it.

I may never buy the book, because I may not have a need for it. Psi bloodlines for me do just fine. I do hope for the Psi lovers here, that whatever they put out gets more support than it really did from WotC. Aside from web articles at their site, it really suffered from little support.

...stuff...

Look, you want to charop, to build the character you like, fine. Maybe that is were you are missing my point. I never said it is wrong for a player to want to pick the fastest way to get into the PrC they want, with the most benefits for that character. I do that, too. I am talking about the RABID charop players that want to 'beat' the system. If you can understand that, and come down off you soapbox, maybe you will understand my point. I understand that YOU may never like a Vancian psionic character. We can agree to disagree there. I am not trying to convert you. But, from a financial reality, I don't believe the XPH will get a direct port to Pathfinder. Either Jason or James has explained that in the past. The system that allows for the smallest reprinting of rules in an AP to allow GMs that don't own the whole psionic book is the system that will most likely see print. That will most likely be Vancian. IF, actually, SINCE this won't please you, as well as others, I hope they actually give the same treatment to their Psi system as to the past as the Core Rules. Meaning, I want those who like the XPH, to be able to tweak it easily enough to make it more like what they want. Hopefully able to just add power points & go.

An no, CharOp isn't only about ROLLplaying. You shouldn't make generalized statements like that, unless you want to upset someone who knows better (read: more about character optimization than you).

/rant

That said, I will discuss the problems/strengths/tastes of psionics in Pathfinder, but don't assume you know more than me, simply because you don't like what I say.

This thread has really wandered far off track. Soooo, I'll put my 2 coppers in , lol.

I have said before what I don't like about psionics, which boils down to personal tastes. To tell the truth, I think we can all agree that thge truth of it is, the whole subject is about personal tastes.

Me and some others (I feel that some of the Paizo staff here): Psioncs are more of a SiFi thing to me. I also don't want a whole set of rules that I have to use to run psionics. From MY standpoint, I would prefer, so that I could include them for certain palyers, is to just reskin the sorcerer. My feel for psionics is fluff based, with some minor rules to justify it.

Others: Love the XPH, and would love to see it ported to Pathfinder. They get their 'feel' for the style from the system. Their feel for psionics is from the mechanics. To them the mechanics helps them to visualize psionics.

A third annoying group: They are looking for the "BEST" option for power gaming. They see psionics as different, and feel they can exploit the rules to their advantage to 'win' the game. This group isn't in just psionics, just some of them come to psionics to get their 'fix'.

That, by no means, covers all of the people, but represents a big portion of them. Knowing the rules inside and out, which I could argue that allot of people that refuse to listen to charop people know them better, doesn't make you right all the time when discussing ROLEplaying. Charop is about ROLLplaying. You 'crunch the numbers'. That very phrase shows that. I don't care for MOST of those numbers. Is playing an orc (not half-orc) bard a good idea, from a charop point of view? No way, but, if your GM lets you, it is probably because you have this story in mind.

The whole argument is about how you feel about the game. Unfortunately for the second group, I believe, from what Jason & others have said, that you will a little miffed at the results. But, if it comes down to Paizo Pathfiderizing the XPH instead, I won't be too miffed. I will accept that Paizo felt that was the best decision to support what they felt was the larger section of their customer base.

Casting from a spellbook: This type of casting is more diffucult than have a spell prepared. Wizards attempting this should only be doing this in an emergency. To cast a spell from a spellbook requires a Spellcraft check DC = 20 + 3 times the spell level. The casting time is a full round action. The caster is vulnerable to attacks of opportunity, to which it is impossible to use the casting defensively option. A caster can never take 10 when casting in this way and may only cast from his/her own spellbook. Also, no metamagic may be applied to spells cast in this fashion.

xorial wrote:

Loopy wrote:

I'm a MONSTER!!! RAR!!!

Actually, that was a funny joke for 4e. Not over fond of the system, but liked those flash cartoons they put out, none the less.

That was a good one. I wasn't too keen on the others, though.

To tell the truth, with the bard's primary abilities as buffs to the party, if you think this class may be overpowered, limit it to just bards. The whole PrC screams bard flavor to me, anyway. Good way to have a party that doesn't have anybody that wants to play a cleric, but likes bards.

I'm a MONSTER!!! RAR!!!

.....Kvetching...

Oh yeah, just about all of the Eldritch, Iron, Divine, Experimental Might stuff is pretty awesome for ideas.

Mulhavoc (monte cook) has a Book of Iron Might that had something similar to warforged. I don't know if it's OGL or if it's all that great, I don't have the book unfortunately, but I know I've never had a problem with any of their products.

Well I don't want a completely new subsystem that I have to learn the ins & outs of just to please one player that is 'dying' to play a psion. There are plenty of game systems out there that have the EXACT same rules for their magic & psionics. What is so wrong with wanting continuity. If 3.5e had spellpoints for their magic, I would have LOVED the XPH. As it was, psionics were 'different', but they were the same? That was always backwards to me. There are a couple of psi bloodlines over at the Pathfinder Database website that are just fine for most anybody out there. YES, I know certain individuals are aghast at the thought, but I believe that is how official material will be.

And for your information, MY opinion on the subject, and everybody else's, carries the SAME impact with Paizo as yours, Blazej. That means we will all be heard on this subject.

In a perfect world, the monsters would each be individual classes. That would take allot of work. It might be something that actually becomes part of Pathfinder RPG 2e. I thought about it before, but then it would make running purchased adventures a worse chore to convert that to just write your own.

With that, mdt's statement about Paizo becoming like WotC is a little off, to say the least. WotC would playtest new rules on you by selling you a new book. Look at Tome of Magic, for one. People buy the books, thinking this is a great idea, then WotC would offer little support for it. What they were looking for was feedback if the new subsystem worked, or not. Paizo gave you a book, the open test period. They let you know from the beginning it was a playtest. How is that like WotC?

Niche products, like books for monster PCs, are best left to smaller companies. Paizo, unlike WotC, is very much into OGC.If the product was done pretty well, they are libel to actually use it in one of their APs sometime. At least one of the stand alone adventures. Personally, I see monster PCs as a one shot adventure thing, or a mini campaign. Sorta as a lark. That has been done in Dungeon Magazine years ago. For a GM running that, it would be ok for an individual GM to make some sort of houserule. Not too hard for the lower power monsters. If you are wanting Dragons & Demons as PCs, then you are really moving beyond the scope of a standard campaign.

I just want to see Dragonstar resurrected with Pathfinder. :)

James Jacobs wrote:

DM_Blake wrote:

Some people want to be "different" really very badly. Others are just tired of the same old elves and dwarves all the time and want to find something they haven't done before.

BUT! The people who make the game (us) are NOT tied of elves and dwarves. And the people who want "different" really very badly are not NEARLY as numerous as the people who don't. Psionics, epic rules, monster PCs, and the like are variants because they're simply not as popular as core rules. We can't survive leading with the less popular choices when it comes to launching a new game system. What we CAN do is get the more popular core rules out there and then pick and choose the variants to support.

That said... what WE at Paizo want and enjoy honestly DOES figure into things. And as it works out, monstrous PC races aren't a favorite variant of most of us at Paizo. Half of the reason we do as good a job as we do on our products is the passion our developers, authors, artists, art directors, and editors have for the game and for Golarion. Without that passion, we won't be working long hours, posting at dinner time on a Sunday, or otherwise going the extra mile. So it's kind of a balancing act, really... creating product that we'd be proud of and would enjoy creating with creating product that's popular enough with enough folks that they'll buy enough of that product to keep us from losing money.

Anyway... the rules are 100% open content. That means that if someone REALLY has a good idea on how to do monstrous PC races, there's not much stopping them from writing that up and selling themselves a million PDFs.

Well, I'm sorry to hear that. Honestly. It sounds like Paizo has no intention of working on a Savage Species replacement then, despite the posts of some other Pazio people who said they were interested in it. I'm very sorry to hear that.

Oh well, maybe someone else will. At least now I know to not expect it.

Freeport stuff. Was going to adapt it to my new "Rock of Bral" in an attempt to make an OGC version of Spelljammer.

Airships from Bastion Press (see above).

Arcana Evolved for the magic and spell flavor.

Arsenal & Factory (Both out of print) are SciFi-ish.

RPGObjects' Legends of Sorcery. Elegant way to make d20 magic skill based without changing everything in your game.

To tell the truth, I am on who believes most of the feel comes from the imagination of the player. Case in point, I felt that the 3.5e Psion was a cross of the sorcerer & wizard. It felt like a wizard with a giant 'mood ring'. That said, don't tell me that Vancian can't capture the psionic 'feel'. It already has captured the feel, because, for all intents & purposes, the Power Point setup still boils down to a Vancian system. It creates a slightly more flexible sorcerer. I say sligtly, because all of the adding points to get the extras, and the metapsi feats, and power-ups was too confusing. The main reason I didn't include them in my Eberron campaign.

Now, that being said, I plan to handle magic using a variation of Legends of Sorcery. If I want psionics, I can just treat the powers as spells, and use the classes from one of the conversion guides for the XPH that were put up on the boards a few times. Everybody would then be using skill rolls for spells/powers.

Edit: Tallforadwarf put up one I find very good for using psionics in Pathfinder.

Phoebus the JustFortunateEnough wrote:

I'm not sure what to make of any of that. Take it for what it's worth.

Well, maybe I'm remembering wrong. I have been a bit busy these past couple of weeks. :/

As for the valley elves, they existed in Greyhawk before the term "valley girl" became common in the USA. As for the Gnarly Rangers, I remember laughing at that even as a kid... Gygax clearly hadn't spent much time in southern California when he was writing Greyhawk....

Weylin wrote:

Last Drow we had in my group was a CN brutal SOB with a war axe and the strength to back it up....we dont tend to get a lot actually good drow in our campaigns.

and DM_aka_Dudemeister, that was hysterical. That is all I can ever picture when someone says Valley Elves. Well that and when someone running Greyhawl mentions the Gnarly Wood....all i can picture is surfer druid..."the Gnarly Druids from the Gnarly Wood cathing some gnarly waves, bro."

-Weylin

I always got dirty looks from our Greyhawk-phile when he'd mention the rangers of the gnarly wood. "Go go Gnarly Rangers."

Heladriell wrote:

You'll be able to find an interesting system of spell rarity/complexity in Arcana Evolved. Spells are common/complex/exotic. IMO it is the best spell system ever released for 3.5.

It has its charms, although classifying a given spell as simple/complex/exotic is still kind of a crapshoot (e.g. exotic spells aren't necessarily any better than similar simple or complex spells).

Barring something like a major changeover in staffing......

Must....breathe....deep.....breaths.....feeling......faint.....

If you get a chance, check out the Noble class from the d20 Freeport Companion. I think it might be better for conversion than any other I have seen. It is from Green Ronin, and if I remember correctly, is identical to their version that was printed in a stand alone Master Class product.

xorial wrote:

grognard

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I understand the general sentiment. People WANT psionics to be different. It is at the same time, its selling point & downfall. Uber grognards, on the subject, have always had a different feel for psionics in their D&D. That is not the case in other gaming systems, mostly. The 'feel' they want is really, "Magic without crutches." That means no material components, focuses, etc. The power is all you, baby. I can really sympathize, from the roleplay standpoint. Problem is, this is usually a nightmare from the rules balance standpoint. The 'different' argument could be placed on divine vs arcane, too. With the flavor presented in many D&D based novels, a newcomer would really expect some more pronounced differences in divine & arcane magic, than what is potrayed in the rules now. I could argue that there should be some penalties/bonuses between the interaction of the two styles. If that rule was core, then adding psionics to the mix might be a little less painful. Maybe, as a way to placate some of the previously mentioned grognards, there could have some optional rules put out sometime (say a PDF online after a Psionics Guide is released), that shows a system for using power point for ALL casters. An optional guide can let grognards (don't you just like the term grognard?) apply power points to any psionic NPCs in published APs. Still won't correct the perceived problem of powers just being some of the same spells available to other casters, but what can you do?

Something to remember, James or Jason said, that these classes are not CORE. They can be expected to show up in an AP, but not necessarily every AP that comes out after APG. From the discussion in the psionics thread, getting into an AP will be contingent on how easy it will be to reprint enough of a class in order for GMs that do not have the book to still effectively run an NPC. The NPC material is key. If a PC has the class, then that means SOMEBODY at the game table has access to the material. That won't be a problem. It is how effective the NPCs can be with what can be reprinted, without giving the material away.