ok of my group of 5 people 3 of us DM and none of us allow psions. it just sucks having them use max level spells over and over well after any other spell caster would have to resort to lower powered spells. however one of the none DMing players always asks. I changed the power points to add the level of the power to the previous cost so it looks more like this 1-1 2-3 3-6 4-10 5-15 6-21 7-28 8-36 9-45 pp. using these numbers a sorcerer always comes out just behind the psion on "pp". so the psion still gets more points per level, gets bonus feats, a more effective familiar, the ability to store unused points, access to higher level powers faster and the ability to give up lower level powers in exchange for one or two more higher level ones. the only place a sorcerer comes out ahead is zero level powers (which psions dont have at all). now as far as i can see this solves a lot of the griping that spell casters are underpowered. can anyone give me some good logic as to why this is some how crippling my player and goes against the spirit of psion?
If you do a search for psionics on the board, you should be able to find a couple of threads from just a few weeks ago, and in one of them, a kindly Paizo poster broke down power points per level versus spells and if they were assigned power points. Psions only really are ahead for a while, then they do level out. Plus, I have to say that in my admittedly somewhat limited experience, a psion that keeps hammering out the highest level powers they can may decimate an encounter . . . but they have nothing left for any other encounters in the day.
One strategy to deal with this would have a bunch of encounters with hordes of low HD creatures and mabye a few higher HD creatures so that the Psion would burn most of their power points. Then by the time they get to an encounter with a more meaningful foe (like the BBEG) the Psion would have a severley depeleted number of power points. This may reuslt in the death of the Psion a few times but eventually he'she would learn to conserve powere points and use them somewhat more sparingly.
If you do a search for psionics on the board, you should be able to find a couple of threads from just a few weeks ago, and in one of them, a kindly Paizo poster broke down power points per level versus spells and if they were assigned power points. Psions only really are ahead for a while, then they do level out. Plus, I have to say that in my admittedly somewhat limited experience, a psion that keeps hammering out the highest level powers they can may decimate an encounter . . . but they have nothing left for any other encounters in the day.
Baramay breaks this down nicely on this thread.
i read the entire thread last night but his argument doesnt really apply in my case. this person is a TERRIBLE minmaxer and only ever focus' on one aspect of his character. he will simply mind frell everythhing in combat and walk around with a tankard in his hand at all other times never saying or doing anything but combat. it's like saying that the wizard is balanced against the fighter because it cant take weapon focus. the wizard doesnt care. i could try to throw a lot of encounters at him but our parties are pretty accomodating to resting spell casters. it would take a very long time to get them anoyed at constant resting. what i really think would work best is just creating a table like the sorcerer that only allows certain number of uses for new lvl powers or something. he and i will just have to work on it together i guess
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*sigh* Check out the psionics board on the WotC web site. We take appart the 'Psionics are overpowered' thread.
A couple questions...
1) are you giving them 4 encounters a day or the fire, rest, reload approach? If you allow the psion to go nova every encounter of course it's going to be overpowered.
2) Is the 'Max power points per manifester cap' being observed?
3) are you using default transparency rules?
4) Can you give us examples of how he's 'overpowering' the game?
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Comparing spells and psionics is really not an effective comparison. You say that if you convert a sorcerer's spells per day into power points, they come up short of the psion.
Consider, though, that the 10th level sorcerer can use one of their "1 pp" magic missiles to do 5d4 damage. That's not bad for an expendable 1st level spell slot.
Now take the psion. There is no way that a 10th level psion can get that much bang out of one power point. Their powers don't ramp up, they have to pump more points into augmenting their lower level powers in order to keep them effective.
It's impossible to do an effective numeric comparison that takes that into account. I think if you playtest them, you'll find the sorcerer and the psion come up pretty even.
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I played a Psion/Scout in AoW (campaign is on hold right now). In some situations, i had a distinct advantage, like when we went into an arena scenario and I could blow all my PP in 4 rounds without worrying about what would happen after. Fortunately for me, I wasn't useless with a bow, or I would have been screwed when we did get additional encounters past that one fight per day.
Most of the time, I have to be very careful with my power points; I seldom use maxed out powers because it taps me out too quickly.
On the other hand, I am running a game using spell points, and I changed the spell point progression to more or less what you described above. But that change was for intuitive tracking, not power level. I give a more generous stat bonus to spell points as well (caster level x stat bonus on top of base points) and a bonus to sorcerers (+1/caster level). My players can go pretty far with their points, but they aren't overpowered by any stretch, and they all tend to conserve points and not cast maxed out spell too much.
Having played psion characters, I can say from experience that the ability to use multiple high-end powers (thereby burning themselves out) barely makes up for their lack of utility vis-a-vis wizards, and doesn't match the sorcerer's ability to repeatedly blast everything in sight. Pretty much all they've got going for them is fluff; their "crunch" turns out to be a bit soggy, with long-term testing.
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Having played psion characters, I can say from experience that the ability to use multiple high-end powers (thereby burning themselves out) barely makes up for their lack of utility vis-a-vis wizards, and doesn't match the sorcerer's ability to repeatedly blast everything in sight. Pretty much all they've got going for them is fluff; their "crunch" turns out to be a bit soggy, with long-term testing.
They can be made well with some Prestige Classes, and make awesome enemies. Going up against a Thrallherd villain is always neat.
i read the entire thread last night but his argument doesnt really apply in my case. this person is a TERRIBLE minmaxer and only ever focus' on one aspect of his character. he will simply mind frell everythhing in combat and walk around with a tankard in his hand at all other times never saying or doing anything but combat. it's like saying that the wizard is balanced against the fighter because it cant take weapon focus. the wizard doesnt care. i could try to throw a lot of encounters at him but our parties are pretty accomodating to resting spell casters. it would take a very long time to get them anoyed at constant resting. what i really think would work best is just creating a table like the sorcerer that only allows certain number of uses for new lvl powers or something. he and i will just have to work on it together i guess
Okay, so this is starting to sound less like a 'The Psion is Broken' problem and more like you just have a player who's acting like a jerk. I think you do need to work with the player, but what needs the work is his attitude, not the class.
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i read the entire thread last night but his argument doesnt really apply in my case. this person is a TERRIBLE minmaxer and only ever focus' on one aspect of his character. he will simply mind frell everythhing in combat and walk around with a tankard in his hand at all other times never saying or doing anything but combat. it's like saying that the wizard is balanced against the fighter because it cant take weapon focus. the wizard doesnt care. i could try to throw a lot of encounters at him but our parties are pretty accomodating to resting spell casters. it would take a very long time to get them anoyed at constant resting. what i really think would work best is just creating a table like the sorcerer that only allows certain number of uses for new lvl powers or something. he and i will just have to work on it together i guess
Okay, so this is starting to sound less like a 'The Psion is Broken' problem and more like you just have a player who's acting like a jerk. I think you do need to work with the player, but what needs the work is his attitude, not the class.
I don't know that I am fully understanding the problem or the question.
It sounds to me like you don't like psions and just want to make the rules for psions more like a sorcerer. If that's the case, simply say that you don't allow psions and allow him to use a sorcerer. If you are going to let him play a psion, then let him play a psion. I just don't understand what it is that you want to end up happening.
Having played psion characters, I can say from experience that the ability to use multiple high-end powers (thereby burning themselves out) barely makes up for their lack of utility vis-a-vis wizards, and doesn't match the sorcerer's ability to repeatedly blast everything in sight. Pretty much all they've got going for them is fluff; their "crunch" turns out to be a bit soggy, with long-term testing.
Excellent terminology. I believe I shall begin to call underwhelming classes "soggy." Congratulations, you're a trend setter (club jackets are available for $15.00). :)
Oh, uhm... back to your normally scheduled thread. (And I still loathe psions)
i read the entire thread last night but his argument doesnt really apply in my case. this person is a TERRIBLE minmaxer and only ever focus' on one aspect of his character. he will simply mind frell everythhing in combat and walk around with a tankard in his hand at all other times never saying or doing anything but combat. it's like saying that the wizard is balanced against the fighter because it cant take weapon focus. the wizard doesnt care. i could try to throw a lot of encounters at him but our parties are pretty accomodating to resting spell casters. it would take a very long time to get them anoyed at constant resting. what i really think would work best is just creating a table like the sorcerer that only allows certain number of uses for new lvl powers or something. he and i will just have to work on it together i guess
It does not really sound to me like you have a problem with the Psion per se. It sounds like you'd have much the same problem if this player played a wizard. He would use his most powerful spells first and use them exclusively until he no longer had his highest level spells. At which point it would be time for the party to rest. This type of situation applies to Sorcerers and Wizards as well as Psions and Wilders and its essentially an adventure design issue. Your going to have to make adventures where the players can't rest after every encounter and the major mojo players can't use nothing but their most power abilities every round and then simply rest.
Standard adventure design is generally weaker creatures first then more powerful ones and then the most powerful BBEG ancounter last and players that go through the gammut of these encounters without resting should naturally try and conserve power since the most dangerous encounter is the last one.
Your goal is to work it out so that they loose or things are much tougher if they instead stop after every encounter and rest. The bit where the encounters get tougher is tricky in my experience - your players may not even notice really if its just more mooks (and more mooks is just so much more fodder against, say a 6th level wizard, that just casts fireball every round before going off to sleep.
Things I did to break my players of this habit:
Having the Monsters Well Prepared:
Not more of them but clearly the ones in the area are now on high alert. This is especially effective if the monsters pull back so that instead of the party encountering 4 groups after an attack on group 1, if the players retreat, they'll have to fight groups #2, #3, and #4 now all holed up in the final room and waiting for them.
Weak Point:
The players usually don't know that the bad guys were not always set up like this - from their perspective it just seems like your making encounters that are clearly too hard.
Having the Players Loose:
If they are after something then it is now gone if they dally for days.
Weak Point:
I found that they could handle this without to much trouble. OK the kidnapped child is dead - well the DM killed her, not our fault. From the players perspective, well they tried and I'm just making the adventure impossible to win at.
Take Their Treasure Away:
What I did that was most effective - I took their treasure away. If they attack and wipe out two major groups and then meander off to rest they find the local (dungeon, caves whatever the place of adventure happened to be) empty when they come back with clear signs that the remaining bag guys hastily scooped up the loot and made for the hills. Bye, bye, all that wonderful gold. I have to say that I barely got the players attention until I pulled this on them a couple of times. Then there was much moaning and gnashing of teeth, complaints of 'DM cheating' but also a mentality of 'we keep going until we get to the treasure room'. Well as we all know - the treasure rooms are in or behind the BBEGs room. That worked for a bunch of levels but their backsliding again so I suspect its time for another reminder that treasure is portable.
Hope that helps.
ok some seem to want an explanation. i just wanted to run War of the Weilded from dungeon. for those of you who have read the adventure. there are more or less only three fights in it and they are spread out. 1. fight to get back the sword. 2. later encounter paladin who quests you to capture big bad rust monster (no encounters in caves except rust monster) 3. take rust monster to warehouse where its clan vs clan vs rust monster vs pcs and paladin only one walks out winner take all. I could put random encounters in the caves and some skirmishes in town but 5 or 6 in a day would just not make sense without the pcs getting locked up and unable to continue.
ok some seem to want an explanation. i just wanted to run War of the Weilded from dungeon. for those of you who have read the adventure. there are more or less only three fights in it and they are spread out. 1. fight to get back the sword. 2. later encounter paladin who quests you to capture big bad rust monster (no encounters in caves except rust monster) 3. take rust monster to warehouse where its clan vs clan vs rust monster vs pcs and paladin only one walks out winner take all. I could put random encounters in the caves and some skirmishes in town but 5 or 6 in a day would just not make sense without the pcs getting locked up and unable to continue.
Well if you break your player of the habit of going crazy with his powers before you run the adventure it should work.
ok some seem to want an explanation. i just wanted to run War of the Weilded from dungeon. for those of you who have read the adventure. there are more or less only three fights in it and they are spread out. 1. fight to get back the sword. 2. later encounter paladin who quests you to capture big bad rust monster (no encounters in caves except rust monster) 3. take rust monster to warehouse where its clan vs clan vs rust monster vs pcs and paladin only one walks out winner take all. I could put random encounters in the caves and some skirmishes in town but 5 or 6 in a day would just not make sense without the pcs getting locked up and unable to continue.
If you think he's going to blow all of his power points to use his more powerful powers then throw a powerful encounter in before one of the others, or better yet put them on a time limit.
I never let my players rest unless their finished with a dungeon. If they do I have whats left of the bad guys attack them in their sleep. After all the world isnt going to stop because the PC's ran out of spells.