Psionics Questions (The DMPC of Ultimate Destiny: Part II)

[Chovox]

Hello all. I have been asked to review a fellow DM's big bad boss for the end to a campaign he is picking up again after a very long time away from gaming. As in, the last time this game was played was in 3.5. Gameplay is at 20th level. He has decided to use the Psionics rules from Dreamscarred Press, since the previous incarnation of the campaign used Psionics. This boss happens to be an old DMPC of his that was near unbeatable in 3.5. Now he claims there is nothing his party, nay, the entirety of all the Bestiaries combined could do against this character. The character is a mix of Psion, Tetori monk, Elocater, and Psychic Fist. Here are my qualms about the toon:

1. His reasoning is that since Psychic Fist progresses Flurry of Blows, and since Tetori trades out Flurry of Blows for Graceful Grappler, this means that Psychic Fist should also progress Graceful Grappler, since it replaces Flurry of Blows. He mentioned something about reading on here or a FAQ somewhere that it was stated that if a prestige class advances something you traded away in an archetype, then the prestige class then advances that replacement instead. I can find no evidence of this. Maybe my search-fu has failed me, but I am pretty darn sure this is not allowed.

2. Personal Gravity and Scorn Earth. He claims that this ability allows him to designate a creature as his new "down", promptly sending him plummeting towards them, ignoring difficult terrain thanks to Scorn Earth, and triggering a free charge once he has "fallen" more than ten feet. He thought process is thus: Personal Gravity is a free action. Falling consumes no move actions of your own. Charges are somehow triggered by simply moving ten feet or more towards your opponent. Your opponent will take damage as if hit by a falling object. This adds up in his mind to a free action dive bomber charge that he can do over and over and over on a single turn, all by constantly shifting his personal gravity. My problems with this one are: charges do not work like that, and the Elocater ability Terminal Velocity, which as I read it, makes it impossible to fall if Personal Gravity or Scorn Earth are active. Am I right on this?

3. Psionic Recharge. This one he is real sketchy on. But he keeps talking about how he will never ever run out of power points, because if it comes down to it, he can always use Body Fuel and somehow heal himself of all the ability burn with a power. I was under the assumption that the ability damage caused by Body Fuel could only be healed through natural means, but he insists that there is a power that not only can do this, but can do it for less points than are gained from the feat, creating a surplus. His plan is to hop to the Astral when he runs low, than Body Fuel himself back to full PP. I'm at a loss on this one. I'm just not seeing where he is getting this idea, and when I press him for details, he just claims he can't remember off the top of his head, but that it is true.

[blackbloodtroll]

Psionics is third party.

[Chovox]

Much apologies was wondering if I should have flagged that clearly in the thread title with a 3PP, but went for something flashy. I am pretty sure I am right about the two Psionic issues, but any advice on question 1? I know there is at least one Prestige Class(Golarion specific maybe?) that advances monk abilities, and I simply can't find a FAQ or forum post on this subject of advancing replacements for Flurry of Blows. My gut tells me to tell him it simply does not work that way.

[Jeremy Smith]

None of that sounds right to me. Pretty much everything in there sounds like home brew rules instead of rules as written.

[ShadowcatX]

First, I don't see a problem with having a question about a 3pp in the rules portion, but c'est la vie.

1) Flat incorrect. Prestige classes advance what they say they advance. If you don't have what they advance you're just s.o.l.

2) Grossly misapplied use of personal gravity if the person is out of arms reach from a wall. "As long as the elocater is within 1 foot of a sufficiently stable solid or liquid surface, she can change her personal gravity with a thought (free action)."

3) I'm not seeing anything that says it can't be healed, but I'm not finding the term "ability burn damage" anywhere either. It might be in the actual psionics book but not on d20pfsrd.com and I just don't have time to look.

[archmagi1]

Ability Burn wrote:

Ability Burn: A special form of ability damage that

cannot be magically or psionically healed, even by
effects that remove ability drain. It is caused by the
use of certain psionic feats and powers. It returns only
through natural healing.

Emphasis mine.

Using Body Fuel to restore a BBEG to full health would require a TON of time. Lets assume he's a level 20, dumped one of his 3 physical abilities (lets say a 10), and wished that dump stat up by 5, and has on a +5 Belt of Physical Perfection. He now has a 20 in that stat. Body Fueling lets him regain 40PP if he kills himself.

As for Personal Gravity, it only says "[...] a sufficiently stable solid or liquid surface." Saying another creature is a stretch, especially another similarly sized creature. A Gargantuan Dragon maybe, but a medium human?

A charge is a full round action.

Charge from PRD:

Charge

Charging is a special full-round action that allows you to move up to twice your speed and attack during the action. Charging, however, carries tight restrictions on how you can move.

Movement During a Charge: You must move before your attack, not after. You must move at least 10 feet (2 squares) and may move up to double your speed directly toward the designated opponent. If you move a distance equal to your speed or less, you can also draw a weapon during a charge attack if your base attack bonus is at least +1.

You must have a clear path toward the opponent, and nothing can hinder your movement (such as difficult terrain or obstacles). You must move to the closest space from which you can attack the opponent. If this space is occupied or otherwise blocked, you can't charge. If any line from your starting space to the ending space passes through a square that blocks movement, slows movement, or contains a creature (even an ally), you can't charge. Helpless creatures don't stop a charge.

If you don't have line of sight to the opponent at the start of your turn, you can't charge that opponent.

You can't take a 5-foot step in the same round as a charge.

If you are able to take only a standard action on your turn, you can still charge, but you are only allowed to move up to your speed (instead of up to double your speed) and you cannot draw a weapon unless you possess the Quick Draw feat. You can't use this option unless you are restricted to taking only a standard action on your turn.

Attacking on a Charge: After moving, you may make a single melee attack. You get a +2 bonus on the attack roll and take a –2 penalty to your AC until the start of your next turn.

A charging character gets a +2 bonus on combat maneuver attack rolls made to bull rush an opponent.

Even if you have extra attacks, such as from having a high enough base attack bonus or from using multiple weapons, you only get to make one attack during a charge.

Lances and Charge Attacks: A lance deals double damage if employed by a mounted character in a charge.

Weapons Readied against a Charge: Spears, tridents, and other weapons with the brace feature deal double damage when readied (set) and used against a charging character.

Personal Gravity has nothing to do with your actual movement other than switching on what you run.

Scorn Earth allows you to float. If your BBEG is more than 1 foot off the ground (in this case creature A), their movement speed is 10' per round. So regardless of whether the falling charge is legal, at most they could only be 20' from you to charge (With the Defy Gravity Penalties added). If they turned off Scorn Earth (Free Action) they could theoretically "fall" onto you, but as the game provides no rules for being fallen upon, only the BBEG would take falling damage and would be prone "on top" of your character.

There is also an action economy issue to consider. Would your GM allow you as a player to do 2 free actions prior to a charge, or in the actual scenario, infinite free actions over the course of six seconds?

Assuming yes you can fall charge your opponent, does your GM have some spring attack or pounce feat that allows a full attack? No? Ok, he can fall all he wants, but he's only taking his 1/10d6 falling damage 10 times each round. Oh don't forget all his low HP since he ability burned his CON down to 3 (-4/HD HP -all his bonus HP from high CON) for a few rounds.

[Jeremy Smith]

It's in the glossary.

"Ability Burn: A special form of ability damage that cannot be magically or psionically healed, even by effects that remove ability drain. It is caused by the use of certain psionic feats and powers. It returns only through natural healing."

[Sazbirtraz]

I pretty much agree with Shadowcat, just a few extra points:

2) Person Gravity does stipulate you have to be within 1 foot of a sufficiently stable solid or liquid surface. While a person is certainly (or at least normally should be) solid, you can't really call them stable, not in the sense that the ground, or a wood floor, or whatever is stable. And as far as I know there is nothing that increases the range of personal gravity, so even if he does say a creature is a stable surface, he would have to be way too close to charge (and that wouldn't work anyway).

3) As per Psionics Unleashed for Pathfinder, the glossary defines Ability Burn as such:

Psionics Unleashed, Glossary pg. 227 wrote:

Ability Burn: A special form of ability damage that cannot be magically or psionically healed, even by effects that remove ability drain. It is caused by the use of certain feats and powers. It returns only through natural healing.

The only ability that interacts with ability burn damage I know is Mind Over Body:

Psionics Unleashed, Feats pg. 48 wrote:

MIND OVER BODY

Benefit:
You heal ability damage and ability burn damage more quickly than normal. You heal a number of ability points per day equal to 1 + your Constitution modifier.

So, unless he is sitting in the Astral Plane for days, his ability burn cannot be healed by any means, unless its something that I am completely unaware of.

Ninja'd.

[archmagi1]

Sazbirtraz wrote:

So, unless he is sitting in the Astral Plane for days, his ability burn cannot be healed by any means, unless its something that I am completely unaware of.

Which brings up another point. If he's going to chill in the Astral for days to regain PP via body fuel, why not just goto the Astral for Day and regain PP via rest?

[Chovox]

I do not pretend to understand what goes on in people's heads when they read the same rules I do and yet draw very unusual conclusions upon "comprehension".
Alas, sadly I will not experience this game for myself. Eight players will though. Some sort of new game where you design a disembodied CR20(CR8+Lvls+CR of up to 1 template) Phrenic Scourge that is technically your character, but you actually play as the bad guy NPCs fighting his DMPC Heroes in the grand finale to this campaign of his. I am pretty sure the Heroes are all going to be Pinning Knockout Tetori grapplers, as he is convinced it is the one build that can truly handle anything in the game. There are a couple of variations on this build theme.
Supposedly these builds are "tweaked" to the max. He has admitted to me that he isn't really spending any time at all building the bad guys the players will be using, as they are meant to die. Players must wrestle with the Ego score of their host if they try to do something he doesn't think they should. Also, some sort of new rule called Quintessence. Very Thoonish.
Basically a pool of points that he will give them that will allow them to do things like take extra turns, add +20 to rolls, and most importantly, to ignore the ridiculous damage that he is claiming to pump out of these grappling builds, on account of the fact that "They've never defined what type of damage 'grapple damage' is, so it bypasses DR".
He has said the party will not be allowed to save the Quintess-"go juice", for, if they want to get to the end where they can play their own characters in the final boss fight(read: rules-bending slaughter), they have to survive this onslaught with at least one of the baddies intact. Oh, and there is a 5 second chess timer to play these CR20 NPC builds that they know nothing about.

Also, each host has ludicrous roleplay guidelines you must adhere to.

That being said, I wish I was playing. I have a feeling I would be able to just sit there while he plays out this "perfect" ending to his game, playing all of the parts himself so it went right, with him playing with the miniatures to show us visually how awesome the fights were.

But alas, he has asked me to sit this one out, and relinquish control of my old toons from the campaign for him to use against the poor saps.
Now I am just trying to make sure the game is legal. As he is recruiting at the FLGS, I do not want this to give possible new players a bad taste of gaming.

Thanks for clearing this up for me guys.

[Nargath]

Chovox wrote:

A description of a truly horrible game

That....... That sounds like a terrible game.

Definitely sounds like he wants to live out some grand story that's been bouncing around in his head, and looks like he's built things to make sure they go his way.
There's no way that gamers that take up that game won't get PO'd with it.

And he asked you to give up your characters to this game, and THEN asked you to sit out? That's really slack.
I'd be EXTREMELY hesitant to play with this guy if he was the DM. Sounds like a power fantasy, and woe betide anyone that doesn't play along :s