One of my characters, a psion, is becoming rather powerful. His brainlock ability has been shutting my huminoid characters down since none can make any of the opposing roll for their will saves. They've just entered the kopru lair and Im afraid his ability will really ruin several encounters, such as zenith or triel, neither of whom have good wil saves. Ive no problem with powerful chacters, I just dont want multiple big encounters to be ruined because of one spell. Also is there anything I am missing here in regards to psionic powers, I am not terribly familiar with them.
I assume that the psion is telepath (or has a speciality in the Discipline):
1) This power is really not that unbalancing as the psion must concentrate to keep his opponent dazed...presuming the humanoid in question even fails the save. So that means he/she can do nothing else but negate another person's actions. This is rather limiting if there are more than one opponent coming after the party.
2) There are a ton of other encounters in the module where telepathy will not be all that useful. Some exapmles in the Kopru ruins would be: the Spawn of Kyuss, the Harpoon Spider, the ettercaps, the Skulvyn, the Kopru, the Mud Slaad, the skeletal T-Rex, the zombies, and even Tarkilar himself.
So, while it may seem powerful it really isn't based on the intrisic (1) the intrinsic strengths of the power and (2) the limitation placed on the psion by his environment. All in all, I think you really have to let PCs get their shots in while you can b/c (as I've found) there are plenty of times where they will feel helpless and useless.
Creative Director
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In my experience in campaigns that have one or two psionic characters, the psionic characters ended up dominating every encounter. On paper, they don't seem that overpowered, but since they can effectively super-charge their higher level powers by "spending" their lower level ones means that there's no "regulator" to their power use.
For example, a 17th-level wizard has a set number of 9th-level spells he can cast in a day; once they're out, they're out. He has to rely on less powerful spells. The psion, though, gets to access his 9th-level powers until he's all the way out of points. He burns out his resources more quickly, but this hardly matters if the party's only doing a couple encounters a day before resting.
So in conclusion, psionics simply don't mix well with standard D&D. If everyone in the party uses them, it shouldn't be a problem, but if only one or two characters have them you can expect to see those characters routinely outshine the others. The main disadvantage of the psion is in long sessions of encounters where there's little to no chance to rest.
The only thing I'd add to James's good points is that I've never let people run with Psionic characters unless I've also got Psionic NPCs to go up against.
Hence we've not really played any psionics since Dark Sun.
In my experience in campaigns that have one or two psionic characters, the psionic characters ended up dominating every encounter. On paper, they don't seem that overpowered, but since they can effectively super-charge their higher level powers by "spending" their lower level ones means that there's no "regulator" to their power use.
For example, a 17th-level wizard has a set number of 9th-level spells he can cast in a day; once they're out, they're out. He has to rely on less powerful spells. The psion, though, gets to access his 9th-level powers until he's all the way out of points. He burns out his resources more quickly, but this hardly matters if the party's only doing a couple encounters a day before resting.
So in conclusion, psionics simply don't mix well with standard D&D. If everyone in the party uses them, it shouldn't be a problem, but if only one or two characters have them you can expect to see those characters routinely outshine the others. The main disadvantage of the psion is in long sessions of encounters where there's little to no chance to rest.
James,
I guess this is really an issue of campaign diversity. I know in my own, we have more than just a few encounters a day...I'm not saying this happens all the time, but certainly more often than not. I generally have 1 psion PC per campaign and no one has ever mentioned to me that they felt he/she outshined them during the course of the adventure. In fact, in one such campaign some of my other PCs pulled me aside to tell me that they felt bad for the Kineticist b/c he would become useless after the first encounter and try to restort to melee combat!
I agree with your statement on the power level of psions: they are specifically designed to burn out quickly but brightly. However, they have choices to make with their characters: if they completely burn out early on, then they will be in the background for the other encounters.
When it comes to psion NPCs it is another story; since they will only have 1 encounter vs. the PCs. In that sense, psionic opponents will probably be the most deadly encounters for any group.
I have zero experience running Psionics at all (going back to 1st Ed.), but may I suggest a "regulator" rule for Psions:
- Tie the use of 'Ad Hoc' spell level points to loss of CON, due to the stress on the caster; possible ratios could be from 2:1 con, 3:1 or even 1:1. Other options could be loss of STR or CHA points instead.
Directly tying point losses to this ability will act as a strong balancing factor when the character uses it and how much.
M
I was having this discussion eariler with someone else and I was using Shackled City as an example of a campaign where a Psion was challenged to self-regulate how fast they use their psionic points since it was quite common to have half a dozen encounters before resting. Unlike our homebrew DMs who concentrate on mega-encounters along with a setup that lets us rest between mega-encounters.
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Hmm, I've had both the experiences shared by James and SolidSnake, though they unfortunately occured at relatively incomparable levels:
In an Eberron campaign (1st-5th) a kalashtar kineticist proved fairly dangerous in an all-out fight (used almost all of his power points at 3rd level, fending off cultists intending to kidnap the party while sleeping), but otherwise proved nicely balanced when the party had to fight several encounters per day.
Simultaneously, a homebrew game brought a 15th level dromite wilder to the forefront, and I can saw James's point played out before my eyes session after session- at such high-levels (and my relative inexperience at setting several major encounters in one 24-hr period) the wilder could burn his maximum power points on each and every power (generally energy attacks) and the enemies would quickly crumble...
Personally, I do wish there was a way to cap the "~17 uses of a 9th level power per day" abuse that I have seen at such high levels... is it just me, or do psions and wilders recieve far too many power points per level once you pass an arbitrary point (perhaps 10th)? Has anyone else come to a similar conclusion and/or has a reasonable system for preventing the "firehose" at the highest levels? Anyone else hoping "Complete Psionics" may even introduce a system for coping with this issue, or is it more approximate to the polymorph errata (and thus unlikely to come anytime soon..).
In a campaign where you introduce a psionic character it is a good idea to introduce psionic items that a villain will likely have to counter the effects of a psion, or to make him more resiliant against psionic powers.
I had trouble with this as well and posted about it on here. But, I spoke with the player and thought it over and decided that if a defense exists for magic then one must exist for psionic powers, as well.
Also, there is not much harm in occasionaly fudging a will save :]