One of the major issues it depends on is how you are going to maintain flexibility.
Psionics was designed to be flexible in power level. Magic, for this system, kinda isn't that flexible; even where flexibility exists, it is limited. Instead, magic creates flexibility through sheer volume of spells and, with some spells, what you can do with them. That is why wizards are generally the flexible archetype, while sorcerers are more the specialist archetype.
The question becomes how to preserve that flexibility within a power point system without giving the arcane classes far more PP.
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One of the major issues it depends on is how you are going to maintain flexibility.
Psionics was designed to be flexible in power level. Magic, for this system, kinda isn't that flexible; even where flexibility exists, it is limited. Instead, magic creates flexibility through sheer volume of spells and, with some spells, what you can do with them. That is why wizards are generally the flexible archetype, while sorcerers are more the specialist archetype.
The question becomes how to preserve that flexibility within a power point system without giving the arcane classes far more PP.
It depends on how much you wanted it to remain like core casting. I personally would prefer allowing you prep X spells and then spontaneously cast these, but have less juice overall.
However, Lemmy was talking about allowing you to prepare spells in the traditional way, but using your pool to determine what you could prepare, which would work a bit differently but have some cool results of its own (the only issue that really springs to mind in this case is damage spells, since for a few levels it would be seemingly more efficient to prepare more fireball spells than cone of cold but then that's not much of a difference).
Another poster on these boards (whose name escapes me at the moment) dispensed with the whole thing entirely and allows core casters to use modular spell slots (IE - you can break down a 3rd level spell into 3 1st level spells, or vice versa) and he says it's way cool and gives wizards more options when preparing spells, but loves sorcerer types a ton since they get more flexibility on the go (allowing them to on the fly trade a fireball down to 3 magic missiles or back up again, etc).
There's a lot of ways one could tackle these sorts of things, and all of them have their own pros and cons. If you could keep them all pretty balanced, there's no reason not to just make more ways that you can play so as to appeal to a wider variety of people. :P
I'm looking at the idea of keeping it pretty similar.
The reason is that the closer we get to psionic casting, the more a question of why we are altering another class instead of adding on to a psion it becomes. You could, with relative ease, make a class archetype of the psion that is actually an arcane caster and simply adapt some of the wizard options. You could do the same for the wilder to get a sorcerer.
I'm looking at the idea of keeping it pretty similar.
The reason is that the closer we get to psionic casting, the more a question of why we are altering another class instead of adding on to a psion it becomes. You could, with relative ease, make a class archetype of the psion that is actually an arcane caster and simply adapt some of the wizard options. You could do the same for the wilder to get a sorcerer.
Indeed. I'm already planning to make a spellbook psion and do some conversions for certain iconic spells to psionic powers because I've always wanted to make some psionic versions of the regular classes, and since lately I've had some friends pushing me in that direction, I just might actually get around to it.
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It depends on a few things. The first is if you want to let them keep their free scaling or bother to rewrite all the magic spells.
If I was going to convert the wizard to be another psionic caster, I'd determine their effective PP total (doing a spell to power cost conversion), then penalize it by about 25% (to offset the fact they are now going to enjoy heightened flexibility), then allow them to "prepare" powers using their spells per day. So a 5th level "wizard" would be able to prepare 3 1st, 2 2nd, 1 3rd powers, plus one of each level if a specialist; then you'd be able to cast any of these prepared powers at will by spending points on them.
At least, that's how I've been thinking of doing it for a bit. A friend of mine has recently become enamored with psionics since I introduced it to her and now she wants me to convert some core classes to psionics and possibly convert some core magic to psionics. She wants me to do the bard, while another friend of mine wants to see Paladin that uses PP for their stuff. So I might soon be working on making psionic versions of the core classes soon enough. >_>
That is, essentially, how magic worked in every 2E game I ever played. My DM and his DM both used magic point/mana systems and so that's how I learned. It was actually really weird converting my character to 3.0 and having slots, and I eventually gave up on that character.
Liam Warner, the upcoming Advanced Class Guide combines sorcerers and wizards.
If it wasn't for PP, I would agree it is simplier. I find, though, that Power Points are a mechanic that doesn't mesh well with the rest of the other classes. This is something that is the underlining reason some GM's disallow Psionics, and why Paizo didn't do anything with it.
Yeah, good job they dropped hit points, ki points, rage and bardic performance...no wait...