Resilience (Su): When an elan takes damage, he can spend power points to reduce its severity. As an immediate action, he can reduce the damage he is about to take by 2 hit points for every 1 power point he spends.
Fist, they're not limited on how many Power Points they can spend on this ability.
Second... does it only reduce HP damage? For example, if the attack is a bit, that is Bite 1d6+1 plus poison, if the Elan reduces damage from zero from this bite, would he still have to roll for the Poision DC?
Is this information somewhere around, couldn't find it. My player is considering that is weird that if he reduces damage to zero he still takes the poison.
I mean, if that happens, I'm basically giving him free access to Immunity to Poison and he could argue that the same could happen for other creatures.
Have you ever faced this problem?
Resilience (Su): When an elan takes damage, he can spend power points to reduce its severity. As an immediate action, he can reduce the damage he is about to take by 2 hit points for every 1 power point he spends.
Fist, they're not limited on how many Power Points they can spend on this ability.
Second... does it only reduce HP damage? For example, if the attack is a bit, that is Bite 1d6+1 plus poison, if the Elan reduces damage from zero from this bite, would he still have to roll for the Poision DC?Is this information somewhere around, couldn't find it. My player is considering that is weird that if he reduces damage to zero he still takes the poison.
I mean, if that happens, I'm basically giving him free access to Immunity to Poison and he could argue that the same could happen for other creatures.Have you ever faced this problem?
http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9qnz
From the conclusion I draw from the update, if you don't take any damage from an attack, you don't suffer from the abilities riding on the damage. DR has similar terminology.
He only has so many power points. If hes a class that actually uses those points, he expends his ability to participate meaningfully in combat.
Let me start by saying that I don't know the psionics rules. That said, if we take damage reduction as a precedent (which is sort of what this is - DR on demand), then injury poisons and such wouldn't take effect:
Whenever damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack, it also negates most special effects that accompany the attack, such as injury poison, a monk's stunning, and injury-based disease.
Now, if the poison were specified as a contact poison, then DR wouldn't cancel it; the attack successfully hit, meaning contact was made.
As Scavion points out, power points are (I assume) a finite resource. Eventually he'll run out of points and it won't be a factor anymore. It's potent, but limited, so I don't think it's that unbalancing.
Well, that's my confusion, the description of Elan's Ability says: "When an elan takes damage..."
It's confusing. It's a once per turn action, and he's using his swift action for that, but he is level 2 with 19 Power Points, with no limit on them.
He's not effectively deflecting the attack, he's just avoiding damage. If he would take 100 HP damage, he could reduce to 50 HP.
Where should I draw the line? I think it's quite reasonable to make it so that injury poison wouldn't affect Elan IF he takes no damage, but that is basically saying he's immune to poison. But doing that, leaves the door open for other considerations on each creature he faces.
At low levels, it would definitely be a potent ability, but as far as I can tell (and again like I said, I don't know the psionics rules) that's how it would.
Looking over the power list, it looks like a lot of the powers cost multiple points, even at low levels, so if he chooses to absorb a bunch of damage using his points, then it leaves him nothing left to power his abilities.
It seems to grant him immunity to poison - for as long as his power points last, and after that not only would he not be immune to poison, he'd be out of juice to power his supernatural (psionic) abilities as well.
It's confusing. It's a once per turn action, and he's using his swift action for that, but he is level 2 with 19 Power Points, with no limit on them.
He's not effectively deflecting the attack, he's just avoiding damage. If he would take 100 HP damage, he could reduce to 50 HP.
Since he has 19 power points, he could only reduce the damage by up to 38 (twice the number of power points spent, assuming he spends all 19 points at once) rather than by 50.
And after he has done that he has no power points left, so he can't use that ability anymore (or any other ability that requires power points).
It's confusing. It's a once per turn action, and he's using his swift action for that, but he is level 2 with 19 Power Points, with no limit on them.
He's not effectively deflecting the attack, he's just avoiding damage. If he would take 100 HP damage, he could reduce to 50 HP.Since he has 19 power points, he could only reduce the damage by up to 38 (twice the number of power points spent, assuming he spends all 19 points at once) rather than by 50.
And after he has done that he has no power points left, so he can't use that ability anymore (or any other ability that requires power points).
Thanks X for your input and Are. I'll be ruling that if he receives no damage, poison won't affect him as long as it's injury. If new cases happen, I'll review them.
It's a potent ability, and he's building his PC to avoid deaths, seems reasonable.
Thanks for the input everyone, I guess he's now immune to some poisons!
It's confusing. It's a once per turn action, and he's using his swift action for that, but he is level 2 with 19 Power Points, with no limit on them.
He's not effectively deflecting the attack, he's just avoiding damage. If he would take 100 HP damage, he could reduce to 50 HP.Since he has 19 power points, he could only reduce the damage by up to 38 (twice the number of power points spent, assuming he spends all 19 points at once) rather than by 50.
And after he has done that he has no power points left, so he can't use that ability anymore (or any other ability that requires power points).
Which is an especially big sacrifice since having 19 power points at level two would require playing a manifesting-focused character. Which means that once he can't use powers, he's pretty much got nothing left.
If you take no other rule out of this book, it is critical to remember that a manifester may not spend more power points on a power than his manifester level. This includes spending power points augmenting the power, using metapsionic feats, or effects that result in needing to pay an increased power point cost to manifest a power. For example a 5th level manifester may only spend a total of 5 power points on any single power, while a 19th level may only spend a total of 19 power points on any single power.
There is a limit:
If he's level 2, he may only spend 2 points (4hp) against a single attack.
If he's level 20, he may only spend 20 points (40hp) against a single attack.
While this power has it's merit (and certainly has saved my tookus more than once), it is a VERY inefficient way to spend your points.
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sorry for the late jump in, just found this posting...
If you take no other rule out of this book, it is critical to remember that a manifester may not spend more power points on a power than his manifester level. This includes spending power points augmenting the power, using metapsionic feats, or effects that result in needing to pay an increased power point cost to manifest a power. For example a 5th level manifester may only spend a total of 5 power points on any single power, while a 19th level may only spend a total of 19 power points on any single power.There is a limit:
If he's level 2, he may only spend 2 points (4hp) against a single attack.If he's level 20, he may only spend 20 points (40hp) against a single attack.
While this power has it's merit (and certainly has saved my tookus more than once), it is a VERY inefficient way to spend your points.
sorry for the late jump in, just found this posting...
Except he's not manifesting a power. Resilience is a Supernatural racial ability, so it's not constrained by manifesting rules. Even then, it's not all that great. Compare it against Vigor, which give you 5 temp HP for every power point spent. It does have its occasional uses, though. Avoiding poison or special abilities can be quite helpful.
fully aware. Still believe the rule applies. Almost positive I've seen this in another forum, but couldn't find it to link.
Shout out to anyone who knows where the link is.
Here's the DSP forum that answers this exact question:
http://dreamscarredpress.com/dragonfly/ForumsPro/viewtopic/t=1950/highlight =Resilience.html
The short answer is that he can blow his entire PP pool if he desires.
Jeremy Smith is the go-to guy for official DSP answers.