The Psionics Unleashed project by Dreamscarred Press is now fully in the Beta phase of design. Psionics Unleashed will be our core psionics rulebook for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and several Beta documents are available for review, playtesting, and feedback.
Psion Base Class
Psychic Warrior Base Class
Soulknife Base Class
We very much value feedback, playtesting, and critiquing. Player feedback during the Alpha phase is what shaped the above classes from their initial design. Get your feedback in now!
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This is fantastic. As I'm a fan of the Soulknife despite the severe lack of power in the XPH, I like what I see so far in the beta. I'm concerned about the trade blows advanced skill, though. I admit not to having played it just yet, but just reading it sounds like the amount of damage is a bit high. I mean, many times PCs are struck in melee it's by a huge beastie that deals loads of damage, and to have an at-will 1/2 damage feedback sounds like a no-brainer. Maybe if it were equal to, say, the enhancement bonus of the weapon or armor or something I wouldn't have anything to say, but as it is, it sounds like a better monster ability. Even a thunder worm, a CR 21, deals 2d6 for striking it.
Once again, I love what you did with the class, but this skill stood out to me.
The Beta documents for Psionic Items, Powers Overview, and all psionic powers are currently in review and hopefully will be posted within the next few days.
I think the Soulknife beta has some really great ideas, but has perhaps gone over-powered as it verges on making all other combat classes redundant - many of the blade skills are better than feats (by contrast, the barbarian rage powers are not as good as feats). But then, that's what alphas and betas are for: test ideas, decide what is good and what is not.
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It is a bit of a beast isn't it.
Pounce will make certain that from 6-9 it rules supreme ... but at 10+ I'm not sure it will really outperform a (beast totem) barbarian significantly.
Now look at the other blade skills Imroved Trip? no thanks, take Toppling Strike instead - easier to do and you don't need the pre-requisite feats to boot! There are many like that. As for Psychic Strike, it formerly only worked on things with minds ... now it works on inanimate objects ... with up to d12s in damage!
There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. I did a lot of comparisons at different levels for DPR, and the soulknife ruled all classes over three rounds, easily, because of the psychic strike. And Rangers. And barbarians. And it even came close to beating paladins against evil outsiders!
I'll readily admit I had very little input into the Soulknife - I let Phil and Andreas handle that puppy. For a Beta 2 phase or for final release, I will be giving it, as well as the Wilder, a very thorough look.
Like I said, that's what the beta is for - and there really are some great ideas in the beta soulknife, it just suffers from having too much rather than too little.
Well first off I assumed that all characters would have to close with and strike the foe once in the opening round. In this the psychic strike is very telling! Also, in feat selection the soulknife can add the Psionic Weapon and Greater Psionic Weapon feats which add yet more damage to that first strike - and this is without assuming Furious Charge is involved in any way to allow a move and full-attack.
The other telling area was in equipment: the soulknife does not have to fork out cash for a weapon of awesomeness, he has one built in. This gives him more cash for AC and ability enhancers, and this adds in to make the difference I (given that between 1/4 and 1/2 of a combat classes wealth-by-level is in his weapon).
In terms of damage per round after the first, the soulknife was typically a few points behind the fighter, but OMG that opening round ... at 5th level they could have +2d10 from psychic strike and +2d6 from Psionic Weapon. Who cares if they are 3 points behind the fighter in DPR for the next few rounds?
At 10th level it's worse, the SK-beta was able to open with an average 73.5 damage in one hit (+3d12 from psychic strike, +4d6 from Greater Psionic Weapon, and +2d6 from Vital Strike), while the best a fighter could dish was 43 with Vital Strike. Even the paladin smiting an evil extra-planer outsider could only manage 62 in the opening round. After that the fighter was ahead by ... wait for it ... three points of damage a hit. The fight would have to go on for five more rounds for the fighter to catch up with the soulknife in terms of total damage dealt.
This was all calculated using two-handed weapons, and I am happy to confess that I am not the worlds greatest optimiser, but you get the picture. I dare say a TWF fighter could deal more damage, but then there are TWF options for the SK as well - and he gets to change his weapon of awesomeness to whatever form works best.
The problem was not the fundamental design of the soulknife but the blade skills that enhanced the psychic strike and the fact that it now effects everything. Without these factors the differences were much less striking, and the average damage between the two was very similar over three rounds. This is why my advice on the Beta is to tone down the blade skills and lose the bonus feats (they get bonus feats AS WELL as the special abilities, remember) or integrate them with the blade skills. When you do that you get a psionic fighter that is versatile and able to keep up with the big boys, but not overpowered.
Generally you wouldn't take/use Psionic Weapon, you get more mileage out of Psionic Charge.
Which feat would that be? Psionic Weapon is a feat that gives you a big boost on damage if you hit for one hit. In that respect it's a lot like Vital Strike, and it stacks with it. "Psionic Charge" is not even listed as a feat, so why would you take that and not Psionic Weapon?
Psionic Weapon might be the better feat. It wouldn't generally be worth giving up your psionic focus to get the extra damage and give up the damage bonus for the rest of the encounter though, after 3.5 hits staying focused instead is superior. With pounce getting a lot of hits isn't hard. In fact the bonus damage is so good psionic charge stops making sense, you never really want to expend your focus unless it's an encounter ending strike.
It is, trust me on this - and using it on the opening round makes more sense because that could BE the encounter ending strike, unless you are cutting through minions to get a BBEG. After all, you can take twenty to regain focus after the fight and be ready for the next one.
Bottom line is, the SK-beta out-damages even the fighter as it currently stands - but as I said, that's the point of the Beta.
Dotted. I will give these a look-see.
Lets take the level 10 case and lets say you charge (and thus get a full attack).
You will on average already get 8 extra damage from just staying focused ... giving up your psionic focus for the alpha strike with psionic weapon only gets you 14 damage. So 6 damage more for giving up your focus, really hardly worth it.
You do? They were dropping that part of the Psionic Weapon feat that gave you a bonus from staying focussed. As the feats are still provisional, I used the 3.5 versions. However, if we do assume that it actually just proves the point because now you are doing even more damage than the fighter, the paladin, the ranger and the barbarian.
The bonus damage from Psionic Weapon / Fist / Shot is now +1 when maintaining focus (down from 2) and +2 with Greater when maintaining focus.
Just to clarify in case that change matters.
So far, there have been a few specific situational builds that we will look at where this might be problematic, but overall, the +1 / +2d6 model seems to work well.
Well, they can take a psionic race or the feat which gives them a PP reserve to get access to psionic weapon as well. These last few points weren't about balance, they were about how it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to spend your focus for a couple extra d6 of damage.
Without the per attack bonus damage from psionic weapon I maintain that being able to get one more extra full attack in an encounter is worth far more than those couple of d6s ... and that's what psionic charge will often give you.
I'm sorry, but Psionic Charge allows you to charge in a crooked line. I think what you are thinking of is the blade skill for the soulknife called Furious Charge, which allows a full attack at the end of a charge. It's one that they are probably amending to gaining an extra attack at the end of the charge, I think. Again, this is still demonstrating that the SK-beta is very powerful compared to the fighter, and that is my point.
In the case of the fighter who takes psionic feats, he either has to be a psionic race or take the Wild Talent feat. He also has to invest in the Autohypnosis skill. It's doable, certainly, but it isn't 'typical'.
That's reasonable comment, Pinky, that Furious Charge isn't (now) so broken.
However, it doesn't change that massive +3d12+4d6 extra damage that the soulknife hammers in at least once per combat. That wouldn't be so bad except that the soulknife is otherwise dealing damage on a par with all other combat classes. If they don't expend that 4d6 from Greater Psionic Weapon, then they get +2 damage per hit for keeping psionic focus which exceeds the average that the other classes save the fighter get.
My solution to this was to reduce the damage-per-round output slightly and remove the blade-skills that enhance the psychic strike, while also restricting it back to only effecting creatures with minds. That gives them a conditional +3d8 damage once, and slightly lower round-by-round damage output than the other fighting classes (or near-equal round-by-round damage if they keep psionic focus).
You really underestimate the attack+damage bonuses the fighter and barbarian get compared to the Soul-Knife.
In the above mentioned comparison the Barbarian was doing ~25 damage more on a full attack with a weapon with a lesser equivalent enhancement bonus.
I'm not familiar with the APG feats, but I have to say that I did crunch the numbers to max out on damage - my figures are calculations, not estimates - and the SK-beta had a lot more options to do this than the fighter or the barbarian (in fact the barbarian was very much an also-ran without his rage).
The SK's advantages come down to:
- Psychic Strike and the blade-skills that enhance it (their damage speciality thing is to general and too big, in short). This is the thing that I think needs toning down.
- Psionic Weapon feats (these are not that significant, but they cannot be ignored either).
- A free top-of-the-range Weapon, leaving more resources to indirectly enhance the damage output.
Any feat that is available to the other combat classes is available to the Soulknife. The APG may have moved the goalposts a little, but they haven't changed the fact that the SK is still an awesome player.
I didn't use APG, it's mostly just strength bonus and weapon training.
+4 strength is significant, weapon training even more so.
I don't think the bladeskills are necessarily better than rage power, but they are on the same level and the other class abilities are mostly on level with barbarian too. Slightly less offensive potential, but better defensive. Without the bonus feats I think the Soulknife would be okay.
Well there I can agree. The blade-skills I have issues with are the ones that emulate feats (because they are not really needed) or jack up psychic strike damage (because it quickly gets overpowered), and the psychic strike itself needs scaling back in scope.
Good old JJ was asked about Spring Attack, and although the errata hasn't been released officiall he gave hios blessing to the idea that the attack in a spring attack can be any standard action attack, such as Cleave or Vital Strike.
As for Toppling Strike, it may be different but it has the same effect: you hit the guy, he ends up on the floor. Only it has no pre-reqs, unlike Improved Trip.
I don't see that mindblades should be particularly able to perform combat moves that ordinary weapons cannot, so why have blade skills that replace feats? Shorten the list and lose them.
Oh nothing wrong with Bladewind! :D
Psionic Items now available for Beta. :)
Psionic Items now available for Beta. :)
Jeremy, it's still the alpha version from May. Wrong link?
Psionic Items now available for Beta. :)Jeremy, it's still the alpha version from May. Wrong link?
Le sigh...
try this one.
New psionic focus rules for Beta are now available, as well.
Psionic Items now available for Beta. :)Jeremy, it's still the alpha version from May. Wrong link?Le sigh...
try this one.
Thanks. :D
The Beta rules for psionic skills are also now available.
Is there any chance we could one single download with everything that is in Beta? Since I have not been following this thread very closely (though I AM still interested) I'm having trouble figuring out what is current.
Beta documents are still being released - we don't have all the rules completed yet.
However, this thread tracks all the current Beta documents out.
Additionally, the Beta document for Psionic Powers Overview is also now posted.
Good enough - that'll work!
Thanks!
I'm anxious to take a look ...
Just a quick follow up on something I asked a while back. Is there still no chance this will be an actual print product, even a soft cover like one of Paizo's Companion books?
Thanks again
We'll be working to get this into physical media, as well as a PDF download.
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That's great to hear!
One more question then I'm done :)
I saw on that master thread an entry for psionic races. I know that there were psionic races in the 3.5 book but, to be honest, that was an aspect I was not a fan of. I much prefer that psionics simply be something that any of the standard races might be born with, or later manifest.
Having said that, are you planning on more or less mirroring what the 3.5 book did with races?
Thanks
Having said that, are you planning on more or less mirroring what the 3.5 book did with races?
The goal of this project was to migrate the Expanded Psionics Handbook over to the Pathfinder rule system, and to maintain as much from the XPH as possible. Psionic races are included in that.
And let me tell you, there would be Hell to pay if we left out any of the psionic races from the XPH that are allowed to be migrated (Thri-kreen, Gith, Illithid, etc. are closed content and will not be part of this project).
There's actually an Alpha document for the psionic races. We're fixing some minor errors, such as the Maenad race using the old "rage point" mechanic, and the like. The Blues are becoming a "core" psionic race, and we're introducing a "new" race - the Ophiduans - as another "core" psionic race.
Wild Talent still exists for those wanting to take traditional races and make them "psionic" without worrying about class levels.