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This is an expanded repost from something I put in the Psionics Expanded page.
So having received Hidden Intentions, I have a few very serious balance concerns, mostly related to the cryptic's disrupt pattern ability. The fact that it's normally only availabke once/round is not enough in my mind to balance it out, nor is the half damage to non-focused enemies. The fact that when you focus on an enemy you don't have to choose a subtype is a strange choice that goes against all precedent. The elan's favored class bonus seems hugely overpowered also. But most seriously, the unlimited uses per day is an issue to me, and the pattern breaker's multiple uses per round compounds this. Imagine a 10th level elan pattern breaker focused on TWF. They can make 4 attacks per round. They get normal weapon damage+4d6+int+10 on every attack. If an enemy is not their focused one, they only need a full round action to change it. In addition, every attack could also blind, entangle, and cause bleed damage. Also, it bypasses DR. This is just what I could see on one read through. This class is begging for abuse.
The shroud's unseen ability seems overpowered. At level ten, a typical shroud could be invisible for, assuming a modest 14 wisdom, 26 rounds/day. That's probably enough to cover every combat, and they can reactivate it as a swift action. They also get hide in plain sight ten levels earlier than a ranger.
I would like to say, though, that I really like most of the book. The cryptic is a really cool class, it just has some very obcious exploits. I really wish I had participated in the playtest. Hopefully more issues don't come to light as I read.
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Regarding the Cryptic - there were extensive mathematical tests done on the cryptic's disrupt pattern ability, as well as extensive playtesting done across multiple gaming groups. It wasn't just me and Andreas testing it out. We had multiple gaming groups with people playing cryptics, GMs throwing cryptics at their parties, and disrupt pattern was, plain and simple, not a problem.
While I understand that theoretical and hypothetical examples might look like they're problems, in game, it was never found to be an issue, especially once the half-damage on other creature types was implemented.
For the Pattern Breaker, keep in mind that unlike the regular cryptic, this is only on melee attacks - not on touch attacks. Again, when it was tested, it was not found to be a problem. Hypothetically, it might look good - when put into practice, and especially when factoring in the cryptic's average instead of good BAB and multiple-ability dependency, it was not found to be a problem when compared to other classes and their expected damage levels.
If you have specific examples, we're open to hearing about them, but our in-game experience - as players and as GMs, with our own games and those of our independent playtesters - would indicate otherwise.
For the Shroud, I realized that doesn't have the level restriction that is implied - Unseen is a 13th level ability. So, at 13th level, the marksman can do something that a bard can do starting at 10th level. Or a wizard / sorcerer can let a fighter do starting at 7th level. Just to put it into perspective. :)
Also, rogues can get Hide In Plain Sight at 10th level. The shroud has to spend a resource to do it (expend psionic focus). That being said, I'm open to discussion on if this is actually an issue and if it needs to be adjusted. It wasn't raised as an issue in playtesting, but that doesn't mean it doesn't need to be reevaluated.
Even the stacking of different insights on the same disruption? I trust that you playtested, and I am no expert, but I just can't get over how powerful some of these options seems. I don't have any specific examples yet, having not had a chance to play. But I just built a ninth level elan cryptic as an eventual enemy for my party (it fit an uncrunched character perfectly, I'd been struggling to find the right class for him). It is only once per turn, but he deals 4d6+21 damage with 25 splash damage, blinds in a large radius, and entangles. It ignores DR and energy resistance I'll compare to a ninth level alchemist with the same stats, primarily 22 INT (I'm coming up with this as I write it, so maybe I'll end up agreeing with you), who can get multiple 4d6+7 with 11 splash damage attacks off in a round. Any one attack could entangle, dispel, have a larger radius, or make a smoke cloud. Only one of these effects at a time, however. He has a hard limit per day of, assuming extra bombs, 17. These attacks ignore DR, and he may have the right type of energy to get past resistance. Not always, but frequently. If this alchemist is a gnome, his damage increases to 5d6+7, 12 splash, 22 bombs/day.
Hmm. I don't think the unlimited uses is an issue, at least not for the base cryptic. I'm not sure about the pattern breaker. It's balanced out by only one use per round. Although, if given vital strike, that damage gets a huge boost to 5d6+42, same splash. Every round. Hmm. Throw in blinding and entaglement... It seems like too much. My issue is really with a few things. First, the elan favored class bonus seems too high for an unlimited use ability. At level ten, it equates to an extra 3d6 damage.. Second, the pattern breaker still worries me, since they would be able to get that 4d6+21, plus, assuming TWF, 1d4+~6, 4 times every turn. They have to go into melee and aren't making touch attacks, but that's an average of 43 damage per attack, so 172 damage per round at ninth level if all hit. Wielding keen kukris, the critical potential is scary, even though the bonus die don't get added. He would have trouble hitting, I admit. His INT might be lower too, so shaving 2-3 points of damage off is not unreasonable. Third, and most importantly to me, is the ability to stack multiple effects onto a single disruption. One blinding, entangling, bleeding, dispelling attack that also does huge damage is really pushing it for me.
That's what I see from a theorycraft perspective. The character I made won't come into play for a while, but I might throw some lower level cryptic minons at the party to test in game. I trust that you thoroughly playtested, but I can't get over this stuff that easily. I also know that you guys are historically great at making balanced classes, so this confuses me. I have another issue but I'll save it for after our cryptic discussion is done.
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See, that sort of feedback - the stacking of the effects - is what we're looking for.
When it comes to the Alchemist, which I admit at least part of the mechanical skeleton was based off, keep in mind some of the other benefits the alchemist gets - Mutagens aren't something to discount, and the overall picture is what has to be taken into consideration.
That being said, the splash + blind + entangle all together might be an issue, so I'll take that as something to review. It may simply need to be that Disrupt Pattern can only benefit from one such insight at a time, but don't take that as an official ruling, since it's off-the-cuff and hasn't been thoroughly vetted.
The good thing is that we're not against issuing errata - we're discussing one for the core wilder class right now. While we'd much rather avoid errata altogether, we recognize that with complicated systems, it can happen despite months and months of playtesting.
Now, as for the pattern breaker, you can't just look at raw damage potential - otherwise the Rogue would just be the king of damage, when the DPR Olympics showed that he was anything but, because he suffered from a lower hit chance compared to the full BAB classes. You have to factor in: hit chance, crit chance, crit damage, crit multiplier. That's how I did mathematical comparisons. :) A 10th level cryptic starts off at a 15% lower hit chance than a 10th level fighter, and the fighter has a lot more feats to pick to increase his hit chance.
As for the elan racial favored bonus, that should probably be dropped to 1/2 instead of 1 to follow the half-orc alchemist standard.
EDIT: I've started a thread at the Dreamscarred site to discuss the cryptic. You can see it here.
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The Mystic Theurge was thought to be overpowered at first, too, remember.
Depending on how one reads the wording for Disrupt Pattern and Vital Strike, the two may not stack. Disrupt Pattern is a Supernatural ability, whereas Vital Strike is for specific attacks. It's one of those grey areas, but depending on the GM, that issue may not even be valid.
Using Binding Pattern reduces all of your damage d6's to automatic 1s, so that damage becomes 4 + Int mod + 1/class level for an Elan Pattern Breaker. And I'd like to see your math on getting up to a +11 Int mod at level 10, even with an Elan, while still having enough ability score points to have the AC and hp to make for a meaningful TWF melee combat threat.
Excellent. One more slight concern, I'm not sure how serious it is, just a thought.
The bombardier is a preposterously cool archetype. A psionic arcane bomber that throws crystals instead of bombs? Yes, please. However, I'm not sure it's giving enough up. Locking in scribe scroll as a bonus feat is a good choice. But compared to the arcane bomber, it's obvious counterpart, I'm not sure it's even. Arcane bomber loses a school and takes four opposition schools. Psions don't have 'opposition disciplines', but I'm not sure losing one is enough. Although, the more I think about it, particularly the fact that they lose a spell list, which wizards don't, it might not be as big a deal as I thought when I started this post. The flexible energy types might be a little iffy, but that's sort of a psionic standard. So, you can ignore this post. I'm posting it anyways, though.
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Compare that Cryptic's ability with what an 8th level half-orc sorcerer can pull off. He or she could cast a Flaring (see APG for the Flaring Spell feat) Fireball that does 8d6+4 fire damage in a 20 ft. level radius with a save DC of 20 (10 +3 + 7 from Int), and leaves its affected targets dazzled for 3 rounds afterwards if they take any damage from the spell. Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus can up that to DC 22. The Orc bloodline would up the damage to 8d6+12. Pick up the right feats (say, Bloatmage Initiate) and you can up that to 9d6+12. Powerful? Ab-so-lutely, but if you really want to min-max things you can come up with powerful examples of almost any class.
I could easily see a limit placed on Channel Disruption that it does not stack with Pattern-focused Insights, however.
The Mystic Theurge was thought to be overpowered at first, too, remember.
Depending on how one reads the wording for Disrupt Pattern and Vital Strike, the two may not stack. Disrupt Pattern is a Supernatural ability, whereas Vital Strike is for specific attacks. It's one of those grey areas, but depending on the GM, that issue may not even be valid.
Using Binding Pattern reduces all of your damage d6's to automatic 1s, so that damage becomes 4 + Int mod + 1/class level for an Elan Pattern Breaker. And I'd like to see your math on getting up to a +11 Int mod at level 10, even with an Elan, while still having enough ability score points to have the AC and hp to make for a meaningful TWF melee combat threat.
+11 INT? No such thing! Here's the math for the damage:
4d6 Base+6 int (base 16, +2 racial, +2 item, +2 advancement), +9 favored class, +2 power specialization, +4 improved disruption. 6+9+2+4=21. Now it would be 6+4+2+4=17, with the proposed fix for the elan. Here are the character in question's stats. He's an NPC, so his stats are just cobbled together as I see fit. It comes out to a 17 point buy after I count it, suitable for a boss man.STR 12
DEX 16 +2 item
CON 12
INT 16 +2 racial +2 item, +2 advancement
WIS 13
CHA 8
His low CHA is not a dump for power, as I hate those, but for RP. The character is the right-hand man of a powerful merchant lord, and he heads up his own little spy network in the man's name. He's a tactical genius. He's quiet, ageless, and deadly. I had toyed with him being a wizard, rogue, monk, fighter, cavalier, psion, tactician, ninja, but nothing felt right. Then this came out and, and the cryptic was just perfect. Stealthy, intelligence based, has every knowledge as a class skill. He's a stoic assassin, and his skills aren't in deception but in nondetection.
My issue was that I am not a mim-maxer. I am an ok optimizer at best. This was just so easy. Also, how many times per day can that half-orc do that? Three? I guess one or two more with bonus spells, and it's a full round action. That was the issue I saw. The balance between power and economy. Jeremy agrees, and I trust him to take care of things. He's good at balance. Anybody can have something slip under their nose from time to time.
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12 Con for a melee combatant? You'll get one round of mean, ugly damage, but average 62 hp or so (assuming favored class bonus) and a +4 Fort save (maybe +6 with a +2 cloak) means he won't last long.
And Power Specialization would not apply to Disrupt Pattern. It's a Supernatural ability, not a psionic power, so 4+6+4+4 = 14 damage additional per hit.
I can see why there might be confusion on Power Specialization, but as Kvantum says, it does not apply, because it is not a power.
It was brought up that Vanishing Strike is missing from Hidden Intentions.
It's in Master the Battle, but was accidentally left out of Hidden Intentions. Here it is:
Vanishing Strike
Discipline: Psychoportation [Light]
Level: Cryptic 4, psychic warrior 4
Display: Olfactory, visual
Manifesting Time: Full-round action
Range: Personal; see text
Target: You
Duration: Instantaneous; see text
Power Points: 7
Manifesting this power does not provoke attacks of opportunity. As part of manifesting this power, make a single melee attack against an enemy within reach. After the attack, you bend the light around you, becoming invisible, and teleport up to 30 feet away from your current location. You stay invisible for one round per manifester level or until you make an attack.
Well that's unfortunate.
Fatigue: Mental
Halt Death: Material
Hinder: Auditory
Induce Pain: Visual
Sicken Body: Olfactory, Visual
Siphon: Material, Olfactory
Toughen: Auditory, Material
By the way, congrats on the Cryptic, it might be the coolest thing you guys have made so far! Really loving the idea, can't wait to play one!
Thanks! It was definitely fun to design.
I did want to point out that if you make the effect Entangling, it Minimizes the damage of the attack, so there is that, as well. :)
@ Jeremy Smith - If you aren't using the Talents rules from Unlimited Possibilities (which would make it moot), how does the Dual Disciple deal with their Discipline Talents.
That is to say, would you only get the Discipline Talents of your Primary Discipline?
Which brings up a related question:
When you finalize Psionics Expanded, are you going to go back into Psionics Unleashed and make Talents standard (or are you going to leave it as Optional in the Psionics Expanded book)?
You only get the talents from your primary discipline.
Here's why I say that:
Dual Disciple is still a psion. The only archetype benefits are gained at the cost of: discipline skills, 10th level bonus feat, 15th level bonus feat. All other abilities gained are that of the base psion.
The secondary discipline ability only allows the dual disciple an extra list of powers to choose from. It is only the additional features of the archetype that grant the additional discipline abilities.
And to your second question - we're going to do that when we combine the two books for next year. We're not ret-conning Psionics Unleashed at this time.
Thanks!
That's what I figured, but I just wanted to verify.
BTW: I prefer the Talents system from Psionics Expanded better anyway! :D
Me, too! But that's unfortunately not an easy thing to errata ;)
Good question.
There probably needs to be an additional clarification that traps may only be folded once.
And reviewed here, on DTRPG and sent to GMS magazine. Looking forward to seeing the revised content compiled into the book! Cheers!
And reviewed here, on DTRPG and sent to GMS magazine. Looking forward to seeing the revised content compiled into the book! Cheers!
Awesome review, thanks End!
And to answer your question:
There are new archetypes for the Dread, Cryptic, and Tactician that will be in the compiled book. We're still figuring out how we're going to release that for the folks who bought the serialized books (probably a free PDF download).
The cryptic will get the Brutal Disruptor, Distorter, and Grammaton.
The Dread will get the Nightmare Constructor and the Shadow Hunter.
The Tactician will get the Amplifier, Commander, and potentially 1 more.
The Vitalist will get the Sadist.
All of those are still in playtesting. :)
Hell yeah, now that is great news indeed!