In my current campaign I have a party member who is a level 8 psionic warrior. I'm not sure how psionic characters work but there's two things that he can apparently do that just seem too broken to be a thing in pathfinder, especially with all the restrictions pathfinder has. I didn't get a chance to ask him what was letting him do this stuff before we all left last week but I figured I'd ask here.
The first thing I have a problem with is this teleport spell he has. Apparently he can swap positions at will between himself and an ally. He can apparently do this instantly and with anyone in his party. He's abusing the hell out of this and its pissing me and the DM off. What is he using to do this and shouldn't there be some kind of save on this? I have never seen a teleport spell that involved unwilling subjects.
The second thing (and the main reason I'm here asking yall) is apparently he can spend psionic points to instantly heal ANY injuries he sustains. He literally spent half a session playing the knife game in a bar, cutting a couple fingers off, healing them back on, stabbing though his hand, and then healing that.
He also says because of either a feat he has or an item he's carrying, if he is ever knocked unconscious in battle, he can unconsciously heal himself to the point where he is no long unconscious...instantly.
There is NO way this is a thing. Please tell me this isn't a thing. If it was then every person who played pathfinder would be using this character. What is he doing to make him do this and what rules is he breaking to allow him to do this?
check the feats/features vs. d20pfsrd.org. They have a full list of Psionic stuff there.
I did and I can't find anything. All of the teleport spells just saying either himself or target. Nothing about swapping two people.
And I didn't find anything about the unconscious healing.
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There is NO way this is a thing. Please tell me this isn't a thing. If it was then every person who played pathfinder would be using this character. What is he doing to make him do this and what rules is he breaking to allow him to do this?
It isn't a thing.
Psionics don't exist in Pathfinder.
He's using Third Party Material.
He said he had a TON of psionic points. We meet back thursday so I'll take a look at his character sheet. Cause if he only has say 25 points, then he spent more than that doing what he did. He swapped with me 3 times, then he did the healing thing on his fingers and hand, then he ALSO started constantly healing his NPC character (he took leadership...DM isn't too happy about how things are going with that...).
I talked to the DM about it and he's going to take a look too but I figured I'd ask here to back him up.
Also, any idea how he can make himself conscious again through his psionic abilities? Or an item?
Thanks for info.
There is NO way this is a thing. Please tell me this isn't a thing. If it was then every person who played pathfinder would be using this character. What is he doing to make him do this and what rules is he breaking to allow him to do this?It isn't a thing.
Psionics don't exist in Pathfinder.
He's using Third Party Material.
I know it came from a small pamphlet but its not pathfinder?
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It's people like this that give Psionics the stigma it's gotten...
I agree with kestrel287's suggestions fully.
Oh and would it be possible to say "ok if you're going to keep swapping me over and over again, you are no longer my ally. I will fight with you but other than that, we are not friend and I will not go out of my way for you." Since it says it swaps himself and an ally.
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I know it came from a small pamphlet but its not pathfinder?There is NO way this is a thing. Please tell me this isn't a thing. If it was then every person who played pathfinder would be using this character. What is he doing to make him do this and what rules is he breaking to allow him to do this?It isn't a thing. Psionics don't exist in Pathfinder. He's using Third Party Material.
It's easy for 3rd party stuff to sneak into home campaigns, especially if you're using d20pfsrd (which is also 3rd party).
Paizo has never released anything regarding psionics. This summer they're releasing Occult Adventures, which covers psychic magic, but even then it's not "psionics".
Ally is a game term, not an in-universe thing. You could certainly ask your GM though.
I haven't been able to find the item after looking through everything d20srd has on psionic items. Your GM is well within his rights to tell the player to produce that source of item though, since it's duplicating a sixth-level spell that has some really strict limits (Contingency).
Two core questions:
Does everyone find the character this disruptive, and does the player routinely make characters like this?
I'm not sure. I just joined the campaign because there was a slot open and we've only done two sessions so far. The first one was fine but the second one he kept dicking around with those two abilities.
I know he was only targeting me with it though, but he has done stuff like this in the past (from a story he told me).
Psionics may be made compatible with Pathfinder, but Pathfinder isn't compatible with psionics. A character overusing and showing off such powers can quickly become feared, stimatised and avoided by locals being suspiscious of anything too weird.
Likewise leadership is very easy to torpedo. There's a ton of ways to lose score - all it takes is bad fame. If it drop too much the feat becomes useless.
Cheating on points and casting times now..that's just what I wrote - cheating. Catch him on the act and he's gotta do some heavy explaining..and hopefully ease down.
Psionics may be made compatible with Pathfinder, but Pathfinder isn't compatible with psionics. A character overusing and showing off such powers can quickly become feared, stimatised and avoided by locals being suspiscious of anything too weird.
Likewise leadership is very easy to torpedo. There's a ton of ways to lose score - all it takes is bad fame. If it drop too much the feat becomes useless.
Cheating on points and casting times now..that's just what I wrote - cheating. Catch him on the act and he's gotta do some heavy explaining..and hopefully ease down.
I'm going to get him to show me and the DM his character sheet. If anything I know the reattaching his finger thing was bull. Like kestral said that dwells into the regeneration realm.
I don't care that he has the character, and I'm not gonna try and force him to remake it, I just want him to play it fairly. And if he keeps up the dimension swap I just won't consider him an ally. The DM already agreed with me for that.
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Ally is a game term, not an in-universe thing. You could certainly ask your GM though.
Who is your ally has profound in game consequences, and yes, you can declare 8at least as long as you are conscious) that someone isn't your ally.
Someone that routinely swap his position with mine while in combat, without my consent? yes, I would say he is not my ally.
As written that ability is limited to allies but not to willing targets. I suspect that the RAI was allies and willing targets.
Ally is a game term, not an in-universe thing. You could certainly ask your GM though.
I haven't been able to find the item after looking through everything d20srd has on psionic items. Your GM is well within his rights to tell the player to produce that source of item though, since it's duplicating a sixth-level spell that has some really strict limits (Contingency).
Two core questions:
Does everyone find the character this disruptive, and does the player routinely make characters like this?I'm not sure. I just joined the campaign because there was a slot open and we've only done two sessions so far. The first one was fine but the second one he kept dicking around with those two abilities.
I know he was only targeting me with it though, but he has done stuff like this in the past (from a story he told me).
Maybe it would be a good idea to speak with the GM before having a confrontation with the player.
Not necessarily. Many many groups [myself as a GM included] permit the re-attachment of bodyparts that have been recovered with Hit Point recovery [consider for a minute that modern medicine can stitch lost bodyparts back together and frequently full functionality recovers.] Regeneration is only required when the part is forever lost.
That's modern medicine. Isn't pathfinder based in medeval times? Pretty sure if you lost a finger you lost a finger.
Of course I'm arguing about magic healing in a play world...
Well I guess it just depends on the DM. I can see it on both parts. But one thing is for certain, I wouldn't be wasting power points by risking my limbs playing the knife game.
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Psionics may be made compatible with Pathfinder, but Pathfinder isn't compatible with psionics. A character overusing and showing off such powers can quickly become feared, stimatised and avoided by locals being suspiscious of anything too weird.And f#%$ing Wizards and Sorcerers wouldn't???
Going to second this. Not only is Psionics better written and more balanced the Pathfinder magic, it is also more congruent with how magic works in the overwhelming majority of fiction.
It's very unfortunate that you are having this problem OP. Psychic Warrior is in my honest opinion easily the best designed and balanced class in Pathfinder. By a landslide.
Ok so apparently he took half giant as a race which gives him additional power points instead of skill points.
He took Psionic Talent feat which gives him 2 more points and then that + 1 for each other time he takes it (ie: first time he gets 2, second time he gets 3, 3rd time he gets 4, etc and so forth).
And the auto healing this was from Autohypnosis. Which is instead of rolling to bleed you roll a DC 15 to stop yourself from bleeding.
Everything hes doing is legit...hes got like 50 power points...he made that character broken as S~~#!!
The only thing I had a problem with was the overuse of dimension swap. If he can abuse his healing spells by throwing away power points that just helps the team out even more.
And yeah he used every feat he had to get power points.
And I might have misunderstood him about the healing subconsciously part.
Either way he can make that check but if people keep wacking him before it gets to his turn he's going to die.
Ok so apparently he took half giant as a race which gives him additional power points instead of skill points.
He took Psionic Talent feat which gives him 2 more points and then that + 1 for each other time he takes it (ie: first time he gets 2, second time he gets 3, 3rd time he gets 4, etc and so forth).
And the auto healing this was from Autohypnosis. Which is instead of rolling to bleed you roll a DC 15 to stop yourself from bleeding.Everything hes doing is legit...hes got like 50 power points...he made that character broken as S!!!!!
Wait, are you saying that he is adding 2+3+4+5+6 etc. etc. power points when he is taking the feat? Most things in PF do not work like that. I am not familiar with the specific text of the feat but I would be surprised if that's how he was supposed to be adding power points with each subsequent acquisition. Much more likely that he should be adding 2+1+1+1+1 etc. etc.
Um... if he used every feat he had to get more power points then he's kind of well, poorly built. Dimension Swap is hardly overpowered nor is healing so I don't really get why you would say this character is even overpowered, let alone broken. I would call it sub-optimal if I was being very generous. I get that him Dimension Swapping you might be annoying, but as has been stated upthread, simply stop considering him that and you should be in the clear there. But no really the character sounds super weak, I wouldn't worry about it.
Edit @ born_of_fire: It in fact does go 2+3+4+5 for a total of 14 power points from 4 Psionic Talent feats. This is actually an example of excellent design on the part of Dreamscarred Press. Though honestly from an optimization standpoint, Psionic Talent is kind of a no-go.
As GM don't let classes exist in your game that you don't understand......
Well the DM didn't realize what the guy was making. He trusts everyone to be honest while making their characters. He just recently found out that the psionics were 3rd party material after I mentioned how broken his character was if he could just spend points to heal himself and teleport instantly.
This isn't that broken. It's just annoying.
Yeah to be honest it is more annoying than anything. But its an easy fix now that I know more about the whole situation.
If push comes to shove I'll find a way to secretly kill his character. The DM was gonna kill off a few people anyways. Although it would be nice if his character does get wacked, that he makes another one WITHOUT using third party material.| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
Well the DM didn't realize what the guy was making. He trusts everyone to be honest while making their characters. He just recently found out that the psionics were 3rd party material after I mentioned how broken his character was if he could just spend points to heal himself and teleport instantly.
This isn't that broken. It's just annoying.Yeah to be honest it is more annoying than anything. But its an easy fix now that I know more about the whole situation.
If push comes to shove I'll find a way to secretly kill his character. The DM was gonna kill off a few people anyways. Although it would be nice if his character does get wacked, that he makes another one WITHOUT using third party material.
Let me stress and emphasize this: 3rd party material is not the problem here. The Psychic Warrior and Psionic Powers are better balanced then Pathfinder classes and spells respectively. The problem is a player who isn't following the rules (at least as far as autohypnosis) and who is using their powers to annoy people. Any class can do this.
Also this should be resolved by talking to the player, not by secretly plotting to kill their character. It is entirely possible that the player has made a mistake regarding how Autohypnosis works. Furthermore, I would be reluctant to play under a DM that plans to kill off a few PCs. If the dice kill off some PCs, so be it, but DMs who plan to kill off PCs tend to be universally terrible.
Well the DM didn't realize what the guy was making. He trusts everyone to be honest while making their characters. He just recently found out that the psionics were 3rd party material after I mentioned how broken his character was if he could just spend points to heal himself and teleport instantly.
This isn't that broken. It's just annoying.Yeah to be honest it is more annoying than anything. But its an easy fix now that I know more about the whole situation.
If push comes to shove I'll find a way to secretly kill his character. The DM was gonna kill off a few people anyways. Although it would be nice if his character does get wacked, that he makes another one WITHOUT using third party material.Let me stress and emphasize this: 3rd party material is not the problem here. The Psychic Warrior and Psionic Powers are better balanced then Pathfinder classes and spells respectively. The problem is a player who isn't following the rules (at least as far as autohypnosis) and who is using their powers to annoy people. Any class can do this.
Also this should be resolved by talking to the player, not by secretly plotting to kill their character. It is entirely possible that the player has made a mistake regarding how Autohypnosis works. Furthermore, I would be reluctant to play under a DM that plans to kill off a few PCs. If the dice kill off some PCs, so be it, but DMs who plan to kill off PCs tend to be universally terrible.
Given I'm currently playing an all psionic's game atm I can concur that I would have given my character's left leg to play a cleric rather than a tactician.
The only real fix here is education. Which is remarkably easy since you can just read all the rules online. For free.
Is he using a standard action to change places with people or is he cheating and using another action type?
Sounds to me like he simply isn't playing by the rules.
Cutting off fingers, as a GM I would allow it.
Growing them back... that isn't just HP damage. Big bag of NOPE right there.
He needs to have character transparency, it isn't the GMs job to try and figure out his character, he needs to explain, in detail, every single aspect of what is going on.
If the GM doesn't have an encyclopedic knowledge of all the material this guy is using, the player should EXPLAIN it to him!
As a GM, if I get anything less than total transparency with character design, I just ban it. If you aren't even willing to give me source material, another big bag of NOPE.
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Wait, are you saying that he is adding 2+3+4+5+6 etc. etc. power points when he is taking the feat? Most things in PF do not work like that. I am not familiar with the specific text of the feat but I would be surprised if that's how he was supposed to be adding power points with each subsequent acquisition. Much more likely that he should be adding 2+1+1+1+1 etc. etc.Yeah, it is +2 for the first take (which he gets free), +3 for the second, +4 for the fourth, etc.
It's DSP, stuff like this isn't really uncommon.
He can't have spent every feat for more points. He's got leadership too, right?He didn't need to spend every feat. With the bonus feat for being a Half-Giant, assuming a reasonable Wis score he needed to spend four feats on it. That's just every one of his Psychic Warrior bonus feats, so he still has the 1/3/5/7 feats.
I mean, literally more than half the feats on his page are "Psionic Talent", but it's not all of them.
Other than Leadership, is this guy using ANY Paizo content? Crap like this is why I don't allow third party, wow.
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Again, if he is unwilling to have character transparency (to the GM) he should immediately be banned.
GM has the right to see/have characters explained.
He is not obligated to reveal this info to other players though, at least that's how we play...
This is a GM problem in addition to a player problem. It sounds like your GM allowed a character into his game that he has no idea how it works. This was his first mistake. Secondly it sounds like he doesn't own a single Pathfinder sourcebook and is working from the online PFSRD. That is possible, but not advised as everything is out of context and can be confusing.
GM's should start to invest in books so they understand what is coming into their campaign. That said, I understand GMing on a budget, but that in no way excuses your GM from having to completely read and understand the other player's character sheet. The GM should be cross-referencing and reading up on all of the PC's abilities to make sure nothing is abused.
Thirdly, Dreamscarred Press' rules for Psionics are far from broken. They are thoroughly play-tested and well thought out. They fit easily into any campaign, but the GM has to have a basic understanding of the rules before allowing the character to enter play.
As for swapping places in combat - that should be dealt with in play. Your character needs to communicate that he doesn't want that to happen with him as the target. This could lead to PvP, but if the other player is instigating it, then the PvP is his fault.
Fourth, the unspoken problem here is that if the Psychic Warrior always seems to have unlimited power points, then your GM must be running 15 minute days where you all have ample time to rest after encounters, therefor ensuring that the psionic character will be fully restored to full power. The GM needs to learn to stretch the encounter days more and force you all to continue through several encounters before having a chance to rest. This is not always easy to accomplish, but should be given consideration.
Dimension Swap has a Will save, so any time you don't want to be affected, you can save against it.
Autohypnosis allows stabilization not healing.
My take on it is that the problem started and continues with the GM. The player built their character to min-max obviously, but if the GM allowed it, the GM is to blame and must rectify the situation. He can start by reading the rules for everything on the psionic character's sheet.
Again, is he using Dimension swap correctly (standard action) or cheating?
All other issues have been addressed, and ultimately it is up to the GM to adjudicate this, but it really does sound like this guy is trying to keep secrets about his character.
Fourth, the unspoken problem here is that if the Psychic Warrior always seems to have unlimited power points, then your GM must be running 15 minute days where you all have ample time to rest after encounters, therefor ensuring that the psionic character will be fully restored to full power. The GM needs to learn to stretch the encounter days more and force you all to continue through several encounters before having a chance to rest. This is not always easy to accomplish, but should be given consideration.While I don't agree with all of your points, we'll leave DSP and balance to a separate discussion and hit the one that matters here.
The Psychic Warrior here has fifty power points (probably actually more like 52, assuming he has a decent-but-not-great Wis of 16-18 and took Psionic Talent four times on top of Half-Giant). His highest-level ability costs ~five. That's ten uses in a day. If he divided his use of powers equally between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, he'd expend an average of three points per use, for seventeen shots.
Compare the Bard, who's also a sixth-level 3/4ths BAB class. At level 8 he has 4 1st, 4 2nd, and 2 3rd level spells baseline; probably another of each for a high Cha. That's thirteen spells total (~75% of what the Psychic Warrior has) with far less potential to utilize the high level spells (the Warrior can, if he so chooses, deliver three times as many third level powers as the Bard can spells). The Psychic Warrior has significantly more endurance, so any day that taxes him would push a class like the Bard or the Inquisitor into the 'out of resources' column.
This Psychic Warrior has nigh-unlimited points because the player decided to optimize him for that. Whether that's a problem is a separate question, but throwing this on the feet of the GM is horrendously unfair of you.
Game balance is always the onus of the GM. Half of the threads on this board can be answered through better GMing.
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Compare the Bard, who's also a sixth-level 3/4ths BAB class. At level 8 he has 4 1st, 4 2nd, and 2 3rd level spells baseline; probably another of each for a high Cha. That's thirteen spells total (~75% of what the Psychic Warrior has) with far less potential to utilize the high level spells (the Warrior can, if he so chooses, deliver three times as many third level powers as the Bard can spells). The Psychic Warrior has significantly more endurance, so any day that taxes him would push a class like the Bard or the Inquisitor into the 'out of resources' column.
This Psychic Warrior has nigh-unlimited points because the player decided to optimize him for that. Whether that's a problem is a separate question, but throwing this on the feet of the GM is horrendously unfair of you.
The bard gets free scaling on their 1st and 2nd level spells so they are equivalent to free higher level powers in most respects. Therefore the Bard will likely have 13 full strength spells, versus the Pychic Warrior who even when "optimized" for a large number of powers per day can only manifest 10 full strength powers. Additionally, Psionic powers are better balanced then Spells.
Also, there doesn't actually seems to a be a balance issue here. The psychic warrior described sounds incredibly weak and poorly optimized. The issue here is an annoyance one, which is not an issue with Dreamscarred Press material.
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*Shrug* If you want to tell me that a character with ten third-level powers has less combat endurance than one with three third-level spells and five each of first and second level spells, feel free to tell me that and I'm going to feel free to look at you funny.
Based on what we know of the Warrior's powers, he's going to be packing more than ten shots too-- Dimension Swap doesn't have any need (or even ability) to scale up and works fine at the three-point mark. Five uses of that leaves him with 7 uses of his third-level powers and some change, which means that we're now looking at five first-level spells matched up against four third-level powers; pretty sure I'm going to get more mileage out of the powers to actually influence encounters, so combat endurance goes to this Psychic Warrior. He is clearly not dependent on fifteen minute workdays-- are you seriously trying to argue that he is?
So insofar as the actual point of the post that you're quoting is, you're not exactly making an argument.
Insofar as the rest goes, you're free to tell me that powers are well balanced and psionics is the greatest thing ever. I'm going to look at you funny for that one too, but you can say it. It doesn't have a whole lot to do with this thread unless you're actually going to make points about the specific character being discussed, though, so... enjoy your tangent I guess?
Huh, the post was about the Psychic Warrior. I'm not arguing he's dependent on the 15 minute work day. I'm arguing he has less full strength powers then a Bard per day, even when fully optimized for that. Even a non-optimized bard is flat-out superior to the Psychic Warrior presented above. The Bard has a number of useful 1-3 levels spells including Haste and Good Hope, each of which scales with the Bards level granting an additional target per level. You really would rather have this useless mess of a Psychic Warrior, then a Bard?
Seriously, what do you think Dimension Swap is overpowered? Because it's not. It's extremely limited and only worth being a 1st level spell in 3.5 called Benign Transposition. And it even gets large size for FREE. Also the Psychic Warrior version is limited to you and one ally while Benign Transposition is not. Now that's a 3.5 spell, but I wouldn't blink twice at that being a level 1 spell. Switching positions with an ally is hardly overpowered. Especially when you make it level 2.
Or do you think Body Adjustment is overpowered? Let's look at some numbers:
CLW (CL 8) = 8.5 HP restored average.
Body Adjustment (3 PP) = 6.5 HP restored average.
That's a level 1 spell. And that's disregarding that CLW's variance is smaller and it's maximum healed is higher (13 v. 12).
Let's compare a 2nd level spell versus a 5 PP Body Adjustment:
CMW (CL 8) = 17 HP restored average.
Body Adjustment (5 PP) = 13 HP restored average.
Let's go even further and compare a 2nd level spell versus a 7 PP (4th level spell equivalent) Body Adjustment:
CMW (CL 8) = 17 HP restored average.
Body Adjustment (7 PP) = 19.5 HP restored on average.
That's right. If you spend the equivalent of a 4th level spell, then Body adjustment will heal 2.5 more point of damage on average then a 2nd level spell thanks largely to it's free scaling (and goes to +10). And note that at 10th level, the Bard will be curing only .5 less HP on average then a 4th level power. So that free scaling can make a 2nd level spell superior to a 5 point power and only .5 average HP weaker then a 7 point power.
Furthermore, Body Adjustment is Self only, while CLW/CMW can target anyone.
So yes. Powers are more balanced. And that's before we get into nonsense like Blood Money, Simulacrum and Gate. Is that sufficiently pointed at this particular Psychic Warrior for your consideration?
So off topic. Is having a level 8 sorcerer with a fire breath weapon that does anywhere between 24-84 damage good? 30 ft. cone.