I felt the need to contribute to this discussion. I need to make clear that I LOVE psionics and have been a fan ever since 2nd edition AD&D. I have to agree with Mogart, at least in part, regarding the aegis class. I will not use a min/max example because I don’t feel that you need to look there to see how the class is unbalanced. (Also, I have a particular disdain for min/maxing.)
The aegis class is essentially a fighter class that has access to a “Magical” suit of customizable half-plate armor at first level. There is no real drawback save for you still have an armor check penalty (which can be mitigated if you so choose) and anti-magic effects can mitigate the armors’ use.
While I appreciate that you can throw around dispelling effects, and in fact MUST do so if you want to have any semblance of balance, this will get very old to the psionic character if you do it often enough to create the needed balance with other non-psionic characters. I simply feel that some sort of system to regulate the armor’s use, such as number of uses per day, having a psionic point cost, or even simply requiring maintaining concentration to manifest the suit would have been a sufficient mechanism to balance the class.
As it stands the aegis will outclass EVERY other ‘warrior’ class, particularly at first level with non-optimized builds. (I would even go so far as to suggest that it might even outclass optimized ‘warrior’ classed.) I would GREATLY welcome any evidence that would suggest that I’ve overlooked something in the rules for Psionics. I truly love psionics, but in my games a REASONABLE level of balance is required.
