Occult Adventures vs. Occult Bestiary vs. Ultimate Psionics

[frostdracul]

So I recently acquired a few new pathfinder books, namely the ones listed above in the thread title, and as I skimmed through them I couldn't help feeling a little disappointed with how psychic magic worked for Occult adventures.

Fluff wise the book is great the the classes seem interesting, though admittedly I am still reading through it, but having obtained the Occult bestiary first and reading how the psychic magic worked for certain monsters with the pool of total energy used to cast working more akin to a power point pool from Ultimate Psionics, I was excited for that to be how the new classes worked. It seems though unless I haven't found the subsystem yet that they work like any other casting class on how their spells work. Personally I found this a little disappointing that there is a new system for monsters to cast but not players.

Now I know this is just my opinion but does anyone know if there are plans in the works to be able to use this system of psychic magic for the occult classes or any suggestions on how to modify it to fit the current rules? Any help is appreciated.

[Brother Fen]

Dreamscarred has its own bestiary with the Psionic Bestiary. If power points are the system you want, then that's the best way to get it. The paizo occult version will stand as it is.

[frostdracul]

That's more of less what I was expecting. I wasn't really looking for the power point system, I enjoy it for psionics, but I know psychic magic isn't psionics. I was ideally hoping for how it works in the occult bestiary where you have, for example, 100 psychic energy and then spell A takes 20 energy and spell B takes 5 energy leaving you with 75 energy left for the day, but they function at whatever caster level you have. None of the augmenting or anything like that. I thought it was a good middle ground between the two.

[Milo v3]

Here.

Medium - Average of Bard & Paladin/Ranger
Mesmerist - Bard
Occultist - Bard
Psychic - Sorcerer
Spiritualist - Bard

[frostdracul]

Thanks, that seems to be a pretty good idea of what I was looking for. Thinking about it I did realize how not having to spend additional points would be a huge game breaker. Spell points seems to be worth a try though, have you seen it run yourself by chance Milo?

[Milo v3]

I have not.

[Lemmy]

Other than the Kineticist, all classes from Occult Adventures are needlessly complicated rehashes of existing classes. When it comes to game mechanics, balance and creativity have never been Paizo's forte, but OA and ACG are particularly uninspired.

If you want psychic magic that is balanced and unique, you are much better off with Dreamscarred Press material, IMHO.

[Milo v3]

Lemmy wrote:

Other than the Kineticist, all classes from Occult Adventures are needlessly complicated rehashes of existing classes. When it comes to game mechanics, balance and creativity have never been Paizo's forte, but OA and ACG are particularly uninspired.

If you want psychic magic that is balanced and unique, you are much better off with Dreamscarred Press material, IMHO.

1. That's subjective.

2. I disagree completely.
3. Psionics doesn't really have anything to do with Occult Adventures.
4. You realize that most psychic magic classes are balanced and unique right? Mesmerist, Occultist, Spiritualist, Medium.... With Psychic is unique, though weak tier 2 rather than balanced, and kineticist is unique, though tier 4/5 rather than balanced.

[Lemmy]

Milo v3 wrote:

1. That's subjective.

2. I disagree completely.
3. Psionics doesn't really have anything to do with Occult Adventures.
4. You realize that most psychic magic classes are balanced and unique right? Mesmerist, Occultist, Spiritualist, Medium.... With Psychic is unique, though weak tier 2 rather than balanced, and kineticist is unique, though tier 4/5 rather than balanced.

3 and 4 are debatable, specially 4, but I'm not in the mood for debating. So... Let's agree to disagree.

[LazarX]

The main difference is atmosphere. Psionics is essentially science fiction/ comic book superpowers. Whereas Psychic has more of a Victorian mystery/horror inspiration to it.

[Rhedyn]

Kineticist is a solid tier 3.

UP classes are all tier 2-3. Occult classes stretch betweem tier 2-4. Classwise i prefer UP to OA.

[frostdracul]

I can agree with the rehashing....to a point. I think that everything is at least flavorful and definitely takes some creative leaps. Such as the kineticist's burn or the occultist's implements but I do agree that a lot of it is needlessly complex. I would never show a new player Occult Adventures, hell I don't know if i would full trust myself running one given that I don't have a real knowledge of system mastery.

But yes, some of the effects do definitely duplicate other classes while trying to be unique, but the alternative is 3.5 where you had 6 million classes that were shoe horned to do two things. Paizo will continue putting out new books and possibly new classes and I would rather see the ACG or OA style books rather than 3.5 prestige class plethora, though that is of course only my opinion.

As for balance, I won't throw my hat in that ring, I don't understand what separates tier one from two well enough to go into that discussion, nor was that what I intended from the thread.

[Grovestrider]

Rhedyn wrote:

Kineticist is a solid tier 3.

UP classes are all tier 2-3. Occult classes stretch betweem tier 2-4. Classwise i prefer UP to OA.

I disagree. Kineticist is not higher than tier 4. UP classes are all tier 2-4 (soulknife without the right archetypes are tier 4), and Occult classes I would say are between tier 2-4. However, I do also prefer UP over OA.

[Pixie, the Leng Queen]

Imma disagree with the majority here say I like OA over UP. UP i feel has less flavor personally beyond the Power Point system. And I love the Cthulhu esque feel of OA