Why are the Psychic discipline's methods to regain phrenic pool so hilariously imbalanced?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


12 people marked this as FAQ candidate. 5 people marked this as a favorite.

Has anyone noticed this?

1. Abomination can't do it at all.

2. Dream has to be adjacent to a sleeper, succeed at a Diplomacy or Intimidate check, and only once per hour even then even if there are multiple sleepers available.

3. Faith has to cast healing spells, but only one per level.

4. Lore has to cast a limited selection of divination spells that have to at least partially succeed.

5. Pain has to use a damaging spell, followed by a swift action, and then roll a 5 or higher on a 1d6, 2d6 (8th level), or 3d6 (15th level).

6. Psychedelia can't do it at all.

7. Rapport or his allies must make a saving throw and burn an immediate action. Also limited per day by level (1+CL/4), not by Wis/Cha modifier like everyone else.

8. Self Perfection need only pass any Str/Con/Dex ability or skill check, enhanced by your Wis bonus. This means you only have to take an Acrobatics check at DC 4 to attempt a 1 foot high jump, or a DC 5 for a 5 ft long jump, in order to get a point back when ever you feel like it.

9. Tranquility must succeed at a Will saving throw.

Obviously these are absurdly imbalanced. At one extreme you've got poor Abomination and Psychedelia completely shut out of this ability (and trust, me, they're not otherwise overpowered or compensated elsewhere), at the other Self Perfection can do it basically at will.

In the middle Rapport and Tranquility can only attempt it if they're attacked, while Faith, Lore, and Pain have to burn spells of various utility and plausibility. Dream honestly makes me LOL harder than the two who can't do it at all.


Not quite at will for Self-Perfection since you can only invoke the ability a limited number of times per day, but it does amount to: You can reliably replenish up to your Wis mod in phrenic pool points per day. The rules for regaining Grit and Panache points state you don't get them back for ganking something that isn't a threat or if you have some means to autocomfirm a crit. Physical Push doesn't contain such verbiage, not only can it be a trivial roll but you get a bonus to it. I am guessing many DMs would rule that it is implied that trivial DC rolls don't hone your mental and physical attributes.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

I hadn't honestly considered this, but this is a prefect example of false options.


Yes, my problem is less that my interpretation of Self Perfection is clearly correct and OP, but that even a reasonable interpretation gives Self Perfection psychics many more legitimate opportunities to regain phrenic pool than competing disciplines, and it's not at the whim of being attacked or at the price of casting a spell.

Need to break down a door or sneak up on something in an adventure? There you go! Acrobatics checks in combat or a legitimate climbing scenario? Happens all the time.

But even that doesn't bother me, I actually think the reasonable interpretation makes this a fair and well balanced ability. The real issue is how bad or non-existent the Abomination, Psychedelia, and Dream options are. Lore, Faith, and Pain at least give you points back at things you're likely to succeed at (after level 8 for Pain) and casting spells that are in line with your concept.


Abomination is definitely compensated- they can cast through fear effects with no metamagic. Their dark half also boosts DCs.

Similarly, Psychadelia gets a cognatogen, boosting DCs for a sizeable chunk of time.

Dream is hard to use, but gets 3+Cha Max recovered rather than capped at Wis. I agree, it does seem the weakest in that regard.

Self-perfection basically gets a larger phrenic pool as a feature, making up for otherwise weak features. (Wis to AC when not wearing armor? Why not wear armor?)

So anything without a recharge option can boost DCs, and the best recharge option gets weak features. Seems fair to me.


It's interesting to see different perspectives on this. I don't weigh these the same way at all (a lot of disciplines have bad bonus spells), but I guess it's at least arguable.

Incidentally, Dream doesn't get 3+Cha recovery, that's the limit on the next ability, not the first one that grants pool recovery as a side benefit and still has Cha limit.


Well, since pumping DCs is 2 points per DC, Abomination and Psychadelia are actually very good deals. There are a few options that I might consider better than raising DCs, but they're generally more circumstantial. (Although a Dispel Magic rider is hilarious.)


6 people marked this as a favorite.

This is generally paizos modus operandi when they give choice. Just look at bloodlines or archetypes. I dunno if they don't try or don't care.


The flavor text from Self-Perfection even suggests some physical checks you might make:"The focus you find while exercising, fasting, and otherwise tending to your body broadens your psychic powers."

Exercise: As previously noted, swim and climb checks are not uncommon. Where other casters would levitate, you actually climb. Not sure I would let a player have a point for doing jumping jacks, but 10 minutes of yoga or tai chi maybe.

Fasting: You stop eating 3 days before adventuring. The Con checks you make to avoid starvation damage and fatigue starts out at DC 10 and you get to add your Con and Wis mods, so it is good for a few daily phrenic pool points before you are really worried. And you get to tell your party that it isn't an eating disorder, it is the pursuit of your perfect self.

Scarab Sages

6 people marked this as a favorite.
CWheezy wrote:
I dunno if they don't try or don't care.

Neither of those is correct. They just don't think of the game in narrow MMO-like terms that would make 'balance' as linear as some 6th-grade pre-algebra equation, and kudos to them for it.


11 people marked this as a favorite.

What does that even mean

Sovereign Court

I have to disagree with Dream being absolutely terrible. It works on asleep or unconscious enemies. Meaning you can use it effectively after each battle as long as one enemy is not completely killed.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

When Abomination cancels out pretty much all negatives to all spellcasting, and pumps DCs, I don't think we should be pointing to some of the other lazy design elements to the Psychic - the poster child of lazy class design. It's even more obvious with how much effort and flavor was put into the other classes in OA, they just had to put a boring full caster with alphabet soup class options.

I wish all the pages removed from the Psychic and higher level spellcasting could have been used to flesh out the crammed sections of the book - particularly when kineticist was the most hyped (IMO) and chakras got like two pages that seem to be missing rules.


I'd like to be the one to point out the pain Discipline and how it has a typo I feel. The text of Pain reads:
Phrenic Pool Ability: Charisma

Painful Reminder (su) can be used a number of times per day equal to 3 + Cha Modifier.

However "Power from Pain (su)" reads as follows:
If your painful reminder deals at least 5 points of damage, you regain 1 point in your Phrenic pool. The maximum number of points you can regain in this way per day is equal to your WISDOM modifier.

What the Duck.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

That's not a typo.

Painful Reminder starts doing 1d6 damage. At 8th level it increases to 2d6, and finally to 3d6 at 15th level.

Power from Pain requires your Painful Reminder to do at least 5 points of damage. That'll only occur 1/3 of the time to start with, though it'll slowly get more likely as you level. (At 8th level, it'll occur 5/6 of the time. By 15th level, it's essentially guaranteed at 53/54 of the time.)

So, while the number of points you can gain is limited by your Wisdom modifier, you need to be able to use Painful Reminder more than that to make it reasonable to actually gain the maximum number of points.

It's slightly awkward and does seem weird at first glance, but it works.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:
CWheezy wrote:
I dunno if they don't try or don't care.
Neither of those is correct. They just don't think of the game in narrow MMO-like terms that would make 'balance' as linear as some 6th-grade pre-algebra equation, and kudos to them for it.

I'm a little hesitant to give kudos for someone not taking the time to make sure all the options available to a character WORK properly just because that's something games that run on objective mechanics rather than on make-believe and popular opinion on how to interpret a piece of text do.


Blackwaltzomega wrote:
I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:
CWheezy wrote:
I dunno if they don't try or don't care.
Neither of those is correct. They just don't think of the game in narrow MMO-like terms that would make 'balance' as linear as some 6th-grade pre-algebra equation, and kudos to them for it.
I'm a little hesitant to give kudos for someone not taking the time to make sure all the options available to a character WORK properly just because that's something games that run on objective mechanics rather than on make-believe and popular opinion on how to interpret a piece of text do.

Which is kind of the point, this is a "pen and paper" "tabletop" game. It hinges on perception and interpretation, and those will change from table to table.

Not everything is going to mean or "be" the same for each person. Your view on things isn't any more "proper" or "right" than the next person's. The game's popularity is due to it being "open" instead of restrictively limited like the MMO flavor of the month cookie cutter builds.

Are some choices sub optimal? Absolutely, that doesn't mean they are wrong or not valid choices.

Grand Lodge

If its a typo, then it is the only discipline I have seen that requires all three mental ability scores to have a +1 or better modifier.

Every build I can work out for this discipline that has a +4 or better Int (which statistically you need for a decent casting save), and +1 or better Wisdom and Charisma, is easy to hit and kill, with very poor physical ability scores. Its horrid on a 15 point build, and only slightly better on a 20 point.

IMO it needs to be charisma, or at least have a 'minimum 1 time" at the end if its wisdom based.

ZZTRaider wrote:

That's not a typo.

Painful Reminder starts doing 1d6 damage. At 8th level it increases to 2d6, and finally to 3d6 at 15th level.

Power from Pain requires your Painful Reminder to do at least 5 points of damage. That'll only occur 1/3 of the time to start with, though it'll slowly get more likely as you level. (At 8th level, it'll occur 5/6 of the time. By 15th level, it's essentially guaranteed at 53/54 of the time.)

So, while the number of points you can gain is limited by your Wisdom modifier, you need to be able to use Painful Reminder more than that to make it reasonable to actually gain the maximum number of points.

It's slightly awkward and does seem weird at first glance, but it works.


I think after the release one of the developers said it was a typo, they originally had Pain based on Wisdom, and when they changed it to Charisma they missed that one reference to Wisdom that got published.


Slithery D wrote:
I think after the release one of the developers said it was a typo, they originally had Pain based on Wisdom, and when they changed it to Charisma they missed that one reference to Wisdom that got published.

Any chance you would have a source to where that was said? I can't find it.


Morgoon wrote:
Slithery D wrote:
I think after the release one of the developers said it was a typo, they originally had Pain based on Wisdom, and when they changed it to Charisma they missed that one reference to Wisdom that got published.
Any chance you would have a source to where that was said? I can't find it.

This probably isn't the quote that Slithery D mentioned, but here is Mark Seifter's brief comment.

Mark Seifter wrote:
The Fox wrote:

Mark, Pain is the only psychic discipline that uses both Charisma and Wisdom as secondary abilities (Charisma determines the number of points in the Phrenic Pool and the number of times one can use Painful Reminder; Wisdom determines the number of Phrenic points that can be regained through Power from Pain).

Was this intentional or a typo?

It's likely meant to be Charisma throughout.

Dark Archive

I'm gonna go along with some of the other posters here and say Abomination is just fine. It has no way to replenish points, no, but the Dark Half rounds per day are a huge supplement to your per-day resources, and one of the best ways to add raw power to your spellcasting.

That said, Self Perfection seems incredibly vague and exploitable.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:
CWheezy wrote:
I dunno if they don't try or don't care.
Neither of those is correct. They just don't think of the game in narrow MMO-like terms that would make 'balance' as linear as some 6th-grade pre-algebra equation, and kudos to them for it.

Are you honestly attempting for one moment to claim that this game has any semblance of balance even within classes? Come on now.

Some options are clearly better than others. The designers, assuming they're not dumb, likely saw this. Power levels for the weak ones could absolutely be increased while staying on theme. It's a perfectly valid question. Remember, being thematic does not preclude being balanced, and the two are not mutually exclusive.

And don't shout MMO whenever you disagree with someone, it's the equivalent of godwining and makes you look juvenile.


Rebirth also doesn't have a method. That said it is by far the best discipline imo. Just take the mutation mind archetype and forget you even have a pool (except for a bit of healing).

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / General Discussion / Why are the Psychic discipline's methods to regain phrenic pool so hilariously imbalanced? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.