Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Tleilaxu_Ghola 07-14-06, 07:56 PM	It's a simple and dirty trick, which I have mentioned already on my Incarnum Tricks/Combos/Builds thread. I would like to see if the community at large agrees with the legality of this. The Ingrediants Azure Talent (Incarnum/Psionic Feat from MoI) Psycarnum Infusion (Incarnum/Psionic Feat from MoI) Open Chakra Power (Power from MoI) Psion Meditation (Psionic Feat from XPH) Improved Essentia Capacity (Incarnum Feat from MoI) Reference Material Note: Text quoted here is paraphrased, with the exception of key phrases which are in actual quotations. This text is meant for educational purposes only. Azure Talent: You gain a number of bonus power points equal to twice the amount of essentia you invest in this feat. "If you have the ability to bind a soulmeld to your crown chakra" you gain 2 additional power points provided you invest at least 1 essentia into this feat. -->Note: Standard incarnum feat language is used here. Investment is locked, can only be preformed once per day, and one point of essentia is granted. Psycarnum Infusion: Expend your psionic focus and "until the start of your next turn, one of your soulmelds, incarnum feats, class features, or other incarnum receptacles are treated as if it had essentia invested in it equal to its maximum essentia capacity." This effect lasts until the beginning of your next turn. -->Note: This is not an incarnum feat. There is none of the standard incarnum feat language which prohibits multiple usage and it does not grant any essentia. The Trick Move action to refocus. Free-action to expend focus for Psycarnum Infusion which fills Azure Talent. Spend the bonus power points granted on your power of choice. Legality Arguments Basically what we have in this trick is a broken hole in the incarnum feat language. To the casual observer these feats are simple: they offer a fairly significant benefit, but at the cost of locking away essentia for use in other incarnum receptacles. The language that is included in every single incarnum feat is as follows: "Once per day, you can invest essentia into this feat.... Once the amount of essentia invested is chosen, it cannot be altered and remains invested for 24 hours." But psycarnum infusion breaks all that down. Psycarnum infusion doesn't actually invest any essentia into the feat -- bypassing the once per day clause. Also, it only treats the receptacle as full for a single round rather than 24 hours. This means the benefit of the feat disappear after a round. What does all that mean? Well, it means that any feat which one uses psycarnum infusion to fuel provides its benefits for one single round and then it returns to normal -- as if it had never been invested in. In the case of Azure Talent, this means that when filled by psycarnum infusion the feat provides a small bonus to the character's power point reserve and then these power points are lost once the feat no longer has any essentia invested in it. If one decides to refill the feat once more the benefits of the feat are provided once more, as psycarnum infusion does not trigger the once per day clause. What one does with these bonus power points in the interim is up to the manifester, but they may obviously be used to mainfest powers. Addressing Possible Concerns: How do you benefit from the clause that provides two additional power points if you have the ability to bind a soulmeld to your crown chakra if you cannot shape a soulmeld? Answer: The feat says these exact words, "if you have the ability to bind a soulmeld to your crown chakra (even if you don't have one currently bound), you gain an additional 2 bonus power points." The Open Chakra power states, "A creature benefiting from this power can bind a soulmeld or magic item to his opened chakra just as if he had gained the ability to form a chakra bind from a feat or class feature." Essentially this power gives the manifester the exact thing he/she needs to satisfy the aforementioned prerequisite. Since the soulmeld needn't actually be bound one need not invest in a feat to shape a soulmeld. You make the distinction that psycarnum infusion does not invest essentia into the feat to bypass the 1/day clause, but then you use psycarnum infusion to satisfy the pre-req for the two additional pp when it says, "as long as at least 1 pt of essentia is invested in this feat." Isn't this contradictory? Answer: How astute of you to notice. The difference here is subtle. The phrase, "once per day you can invest essentia into this feat" implies the actual investment of essentia. Psycarnum infusion does not invest essentia; it fills the incarnum receptacle so that it is "treated as if it had essentia invested in it." That is to say that any effects that are dependant on the amount of essentia invested in the receptacle are treated to have the maximum capacity of that receptacle invested in them. This does not mean that one actually invests essentia into the feat. One might have no essentia at all and still reap the benefits of this feat -- as this feat does not provide an essentia bonus. Now, in Azure talent the 2 additional power points are provided contingent on the fact that there is at least one essentia invested in the feat. Note that this is, by definition, an effect which is dependant on the amount of essentia that is invested in the receptacle. Therefore, psycarnum infusion should provide the benefits. Adaptation It's simple enough. You get power points, you spend them, you get more. I recommend combining this with a torc of power preservation. At 18th level with the feats I show above you can now manifest a 7th level power for free, the only cost is that you expend your focus. Go nuts. Kill stuff. Do it for free.
Tempest Stormwind 07-14-06, 08:37 PM	Isn't this essentially the same arguments made for the Psycarnumeleon and similar Psycarnum Metamagic? In those, you expend focus and engage another once-per-day incarnum feat, Midnight Metamagic, applying free metamagic to spells simply by expending focus. There was an extended thread a while back that debated its legality... I'm reasonably certain the same arguments could be made (for both sides) about this. Personally, though I'm not convinced it works, I'm more convinced it does than it doesn't.
Caelic 07-14-06, 08:47 PM	I, on the other hand, think that to make this work, you have to be inconsistent. Either "as if it had essentia invested" is equivalent to invested essentia, or it isn't; you can't say that it is for purposes of triggering the feat and gaining the additional PP, but not for purposes of locking the feat. That amounts to selective (and subjective) interpretation. Occam's Razor comes into play here. There are two possibilities. Either "virtual essentia" triggers the "once per day" clause, or it doesn't. If it does, the feat is massively broken. If it doesn't, the feat is not massively broken. Therefore, the latter is most probably the correct interpretation.
kilroo 07-14-06, 09:00 PM	Based on something else that came up with one of my groups at one point, I have concluded that I have at least one DM under whom this trick would work...but only from a nearly empty power pool. Unless you don't have any power points left, he won't let you assume that the bonus ones you accumulate are the ones you subsequently spend. Until you manage to maintain a psionic focus with an empty power pool, this would mean that under his ruling you could only get your maximum essentia capacity doohicky in extra power points.
PhoenixInferno 07-14-06, 09:06 PM	Occam's Razor comes into play here. There are two possibilities. Either "virtual essentia" triggers the "once per day" clause, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, the feat is massively broken. If it does, the feat is not massively broken. Therefore, the latter is most probably the correct interpretation.I think this is what you meant...right?
hogarth 07-14-06, 09:31 PM	You're not the first one to wonder about the interaction of Azure Talent and Psycarnum infusion. There was another thread on this same topic. I still don't think it gives infinite bonus power points, any more than multiple castings of Eagle's Splendor give you infinite turning attempts -- if you've spent them once, they remain spent once you get them back. You could certainly argue otherwise, of course, since "bonus power points" isn't a well-defined term.
HotSake 07-15-06, 01:30 AM	I, on the other hand, think that to make this work, you have to be inconsistent. Either "as if it had essentia invested" is equivalent to invested essentia, or it isn't; you can't say that it is for purposes of triggering the feat and gaining the additional PP, but not for purposes of locking the feat. Sure you can. Picture the Azure Talent feat as a room with a single door. The door is rigged such that you can open it once per day. The room is rigged such that you gain a certain benefit depending on how many ping-pong balls are in the room. Thus, you can open the door, put some or all your ping-pong balls in the room, close the door, and gain the room's benefit, but you can't get your ping-pong balls out or put more in until tomorrow. That's the Azure Talent feat and the normal method of essentia investment. Psycarnum Infusion is like installing a hatch in the floor. For a small price, you can open the hatch and fill the room with special ping-pong balls from a reservoir installed along with the hatch, but the hatch is rigged to open up again in six seconds and let all the ping-pong balls out. You gain the benefit of the rigged room while it's full of the special ping-pong balls, never needing to put any of your own in, but it lasts only a short while before emptying. Still, you never use the door, so you never trigger any locking mechanisms. That's what Psycarnum Infusion does. Basically, it lets you cheat by sneaking some essentia in through the back door.
BloodSpill 07-15-06, 11:55 PM	Occam's Razor has no place in D&D. :P So what's the maximum PP you get out of Azure Talent? Is the maximum essentia still based on your character level?
Lusden Veharo 07-15-06, 11:57 PM	I agree with kilroo here; nowhere that I can find do the rules say that bonus power points are lost/used first. Ergo, this is a nifty trick if you're low on PP but not quite out, but otherwise it needs another abuse: Earth Power/Torq of Power Preservation/Bestow Power with your psicrystal. Problem and solution in one easy step.
Tleilaxu_Ghola 07-16-06, 12:20 AM	Maximum pp that can be gained from azure talent is 12 pp at 18th level. I am waiting on a CustServ response before I plan on defending this trick further. It sounds like this will be a heavy battle over semantics. Yummy. :rolleyes:
Tleilaxu_Ghola 07-17-06, 11:51 PM	Hey! Good news. I got a Cust Serv response. Here it is: If one uses psycarnum infusion to fill an incarnum feat does it: a. Fill the feat and give the benefits for only 1 round, but allow the user to refill it again later with another use of the psycarnum infusion feat? b. Fill the feat and lock the investment for 24 hours. c. Fill the feat and give the benefits for only 1 round, but bar any further investments into the feat because of the once per day investment clause. Your selection "a" is the correct description! Good Luck and Game On! As I have argued, this supports what I believe to be the RAI and the RAW. It essentially means that psycarnum infusion does not trip the 1/day investment clauses (as no investment is made) but the benefits of investment are gained (as the feat states). This means the benefits of the feat are gained and lost in a matter of a round. That said, I now plan to address this good argument: I still don't think it gives infinite bonus power points, any more than multiple castings of Eagle's Splendor give you infinite turning attempts -- if you've spent them once, they remain spent once you get them back. The trouble with this analogy is this: turning attempts are given in a number per day. You get 3 + cha per day. If you pump your cha up by 4 more with eagle's splendor you get 2 more uses per day. If you apply eagle's splendor again, you still only get a total of 3 + cha per day. Once you've spent them all there's no more to be had. With bonus power points it's not the same. In all contexts that I've ever seen them found, bonus power points are only regenerated once per day when the psion regains his power points. However, with this incarnum feat this is clearly not the case even in normal usage. The bonus power points come when the feat is invested in, not when one regains their daily power points. So in that regard, I don't think bonus power points should be put in comparison to turning attempts. As I've argued in the OP, it's a simple matter of activating the feat, gaining the benefits, spending the power points, and then losing those power points. So to answer the following: nowhere that I can find do the rules say that bonus power points are lost/used first. Ergo, this is a nifty trick if you're low on PP... Here's how I see this working: 1. Gain 12 bonus power points [Pool at X + 12] 2. Spend 12 power points [Pool at X] 3. Bonus power points are lost [Pool at X] You're arguing that at step three the pool should be at X - 12. This argument is all well and good until X < 12. There are no rules which indicate that a character can have negative power points, just as there are no rules that indicate that one can have a negative ability score. Since this interpretation fails to account on numerous (not simply trivial) cases, it logically cannot be true. (Note: One may argue that by gaining sufficient negative levels, one may receive a negative power point reserve. This notion is flawed, however. The amount of power points in the reserve is as much an indication of how high level a power a psion may manifest as is his manifester level. If a 20th level wizard were to be hit at the end of the day with a negative level it would not remove a ninth level slot (if he didn't have any left) it would remove the highest level slot that was filled. So it is with a psion. If a 20th level psion with 10 pp left were hit with a negative level he would lose 9 pp (the amount of pp that it would take to manifest a 5th level power -- which is the highest level power that psion could manifest.) To my knowledge, this is the only way one may inflict pp damage upon a victim.)
Caelic 07-17-06, 11:58 PM	I'd be curious to see what they say on this specific feat, rather than on a question about incarnum feats in general.
Tleilaxu_Ghola 07-18-06, 12:17 AM	I'd be curious to see what they say on this specific feat, rather than on a question about incarnum feats in general. Why should their response be any different? The crucial rules argument lied in the question I asked. Everything else after that was just secondary and specific application. Now that the general question is answered we may move on.
FlimFlam 07-18-06, 12:33 AM	What would happen if you invest essentia into Azure Talent normally. Then you encounter a creature that drains the incarnum invested in this feat. Do you think you can re-invest essentia into the feat again?
Khan the Destroyer 07-18-06, 01:06 AM	Isn't this essentially the same arguments made for the Psycarnumeleon and similar Psycarnum Metamagic? This is actually the same exact trick I proposed the day I got my copy of MoI (minus the Open Chakra power). It was shot down by most everyone on the Psi Board (minus Cvazi) and then overshadowed by Cvazi's Midnight Augmentation cheese. The reason people said it didn't work had nothing to do with 'locking essentia in'. It had more to do with whether or not you used the power points from Azure Talent first. I agree with what TG is saying now, but I dropped the case back then since it wasn't widely accepted :). (When MoI came out, two things were argued about regarding psionics. Bonus power points and if they are used first or not, and augmentation cost and whether the price is one lump sum or payed more than once.) EDIT: One of the points I made when I brought this up was the stamina it adds to a low level character. Even at 1st level, you can pull this combo off (though with less efficiency) and manifest your powers for free. You'd have to enter combat with psionic focus. Use your focus to manifest a power for free, then use your next turn to regain focus as a full-round action. Rinse and repeat. It's not pretty, but it is still free manifesting at level 1. A human/azurin wilder at level 1 can throw around augmented 1st level powers for free with this combo and Wild Surge.
hogarth 07-18-06, 10:22 AM	The trouble with this analogy is this: turning attempts are given in a number per day. You get 3 + cha per day. If you pump your cha up by 4 more with eagle's splendor you get 2 more uses per day. If you apply eagle's splendor again, you still only get a total of 3 + cha per day. Once you've spent them all there's no more to be had. With bonus power points it's not the same. In all contexts that I've ever seen them found, bonus power points are only regenerated once per day when the psion regains his power points. However, with this incarnum feat this is clearly not the case even in normal usage. The bonus power points come when the feat is invested in, not when one regains their daily power points. So in that regard, I don't think bonus power points should be put in comparison to turning attempts. I admit it's not a perfect analogy. In fact, I thought about comparing it to taking a headband of intellect on and off but that's a worse example; the first time you put on a headband of intellect, you just get extra (empty) spell slots, not full slots. I guess a better example would be an Amulet of Health. When it's put on, you get bonus HP. If you take a point of damage, then when you take it off you lose the bonus HP and you're still wounded; it wasn't a "bonus HP" you lost, just a generic HP. As I've argued in the OP, it's a simple matter of activating the feat, gaining the benefits, spending the power points, and then losing those power points. So to answer the following: Here's how I see this working: 1. Gain 12 bonus power points [Pool at X + 12] 2. Spend 12 power points [Pool at X] 3. Bonus power points are lost [Pool at X] You're arguing that at step three the pool should be at X - 12. This argument is all well and good until X < 12. There are no rules which indicate that a character can have negative power points, just as there are no rules that indicate that one can have a negative ability score. Since this interpretation fails to account on numerous (not simply trivial) cases, it logically cannot be true. That's a bad analogy, since there's a specific place in the rules that says "you cannot have an ability score less than zero", but there is no such rule (as far as I know) for power points. Then you get into philosophical questions like: are power points more like hit points or like ability scores? What does the color blue sound like? In Brazil, does hot snow fall up? ;)
Tleilaxu_Ghola 07-18-06, 11:15 AM	As khan said, this has great implications for low-levels, even if the bonus pp are not spent first. Consider a psychic warrior using this trick. Even at 20th level he would be able to manifest his most expensive powers for free. (This trick can give you up to 7th level powers for free)
Ecu 07-18-06, 01:00 PM	The main problem with this trick (mind you I enjoyed the idea of using this as well) is the fact that you are not given temporary power points. As such, the power points are treated normally. In that if you lose them, ya go X - 12 (or whatever it was boosted to). This is the only fair argument I have against this trick working as ya saw. While I don't see a problem with psionic focus = 1 pp allowing ya to manifest minor things for free, I find this trick a bit too good to be allowed unchecked. If custserve does declare the pp as temporary then I guess ya win though. Ciao, Ecu
QuarianRex 07-18-06, 08:07 PM	When I posted about this a while back the consensus that I got was that because the PPs gained were Bonus and not temporary they were treated like bonus HPs from barbarian rage or Con enhancing items. This would appear to fit with the apparent RAI as the bonus PPs were supposed to be there for 24 hours, etc. This would seem to make the use of Azure Talent and Psycarnum Infusion only useful when you actually don't have enough PP to manifest the power you want and need an extra boost. This would also essentially be a one-shot when used at such desperate times as the PP expenditure would reduce you to 0 PPs. And of course you cannot regain/maintain focus with 0 PP so the trick would be done. The only way around this would be the use of a Linked Bestow Power. Set it to go off just after your next round begins and you have 2 PPs available after Psycarnum Infusion wears off. Now you can refocus. Rinse and repeat. Granted, now you have to deliberately limit yourself to manifesting powers only on yourself (so the Linked Bestow Power affects you) and you need to refocus twice (once for Psycarnum Infusion, once for the Metapsionic Link, needing the Psionic Meditation Feat to do it in time). Still, relatively small price to pay to when you have already exceeded your limit.
Tleilaxu_Ghola 07-18-06, 08:47 PM	Ah, good point. I had forgotten that one could not refocus w/o at least 1 pp. Hmm... it would appear this trick is not as savory as I had hoped. *sigh* Now, midnight augmentation may have more value... but I really don't want to get into another midnight augmentation arguement.