Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Illeveun Bloodblaze 08-11-07, 01:25 AM	I got the expanded psionics handbook about two months ago, and I've been reading this board, and it seems like the opinion on the Complete Psionic is pretty low. Could someone please tell me why this is?
Tiarn 08-11-07, 01:56 AM	If you read those threads how did you come to the conclusion it was poorly recieved but not realize why? Here (http://forums.gleemax.com/wotc_archive/index.php/t-634316.html) sums it up pretty well in the third paragraph. ...Aside from the inconsistant and confusing rules, type-os, poor monster format and that unfortunate change to the Astral Construct, something else was bothering me. Then it hit me. I play a Psion. When I looked through the book, there just wasn't that much for me... Add that to some of my own opinions of the poor parts of the book (Anarchic initiates, Mindflayer heritage feats?, poor editing, the fact that you have to pay for "errata", etc) and overall it just is not worth it.
TheAnthroDM 08-11-07, 02:00 AM	Hi, I'm The Anthro DM. I like Complete Psionics. Why? Because it leaves a lot of room for me to go "OMG ********" and change the rules. :)
InkBlot 08-11-07, 02:03 AM	1. Extremely poor editing. ComPsi had the worst editing of any professionally published book I've ever seen. 2. New material which did not mesh with the flavor of existing material. In particular, divinely granted psionics, ilithid heritage, and psionic versions of divine spells. 3. Lack of support for the XPH classes. 4. Redundant or filler material. For example, instead of creating a feat which grants two additional uses of a racial psi-like ability, they created eight seperate feats, each of which gave two additional uses of a different racial psi-like ability. 5. Senseless, needless, nerfs. The most famous of which is the astral construct nerf. It restricts you to having only one astral construct manifested at any one time. The stated reason for this was to prevent wilders from creating high level astral constructs earlier. 6. Reprints. Most of the powers which weren't poorly edited, weren't copies of divine spells, and weren't nerfs on existing powers, were simply reprints from other books. 7. Conflicting rules. Several times ComPsi states things which directly conflict with the XPH, such as how negative levels work with psionic characters. There are good things in Complete Psionic. But it's not worth it unless you're a true nut for psionics. If you always include psionic NPCs when you DM, and you always play a psionic character when you have the chance, then you might want to pick up ComPsi. If you want to play an Ardent, a Lurk, or an Erudite, then pick up ComPsi. If you want to play a mounted-combat or archery focused Psiwar, then pick up ComPsi.
Tempest Stormwind 08-11-07, 02:04 AM	See the Lycanthromancer quote in my sig.
Charke 08-11-07, 02:23 AM	Psionicists rule in 3.5. I'm not sure what you are all complaining about. The 2nd Ed psionicists were too powerful. The 3.0 psion was totally nerfed. But 3.5 is much better. It's got a handful of really good powers and a slew of average ones. I am disapointed the psion is closer now to the wizard than ever before though. Yes there are problems and psionic combat is simply non-existent which is a shame but I think it's about the best it's ever been. Still I would like to see some more of the 2nd edition type stuff. Augmentations, while really cool, are simply making psions more flexible than wizards and approaching too powerful again. A psion can burn off all his points in a single encounter to get a tremendous effect, better than any other character can. Mark Charke
Novacat 08-11-07, 02:28 AM	Psionicists rule in 3.5. I'm not sure what you are all complaining about. The 2nd Ed psionicists were too powerful. The 3.0 psion was totally nerfed. But 3.5 is much better. It's got a handful of really good powers and a slew of average ones. I am disapointed the psion is closer now to the wizard than ever before though. Yes there are problems and psionic combat is simply non-existent which is a shame but I think it's about the best it's ever been. Still I would like to see some more of the 2nd edition type stuff. Augmentations, while really cool, are simply making psions more flexible than wizards and approaching too powerful again. A psion can burn off all his points in a single encounter to get a tremendous effect, better than any other character can. Mark Charke Way to go. You managed to miss the point of this thread completely.
zzo38 08-11-07, 02:35 AM	I used Illithid Heritage but only to gain more defense. I have also used some of the new powers (especially healing powers, gained by Expanded Knowledge feat).
Grimmsfeld 08-11-07, 02:50 AM	The Lurk is pretty decent. Anything associated with Astral Constructs, illithids, fiends, celestials, and the word stygian...meh.
Oregwath 08-11-07, 11:03 AM	If you happen to be playing an elan, then go ahead and look at some of those feats. As an elan palidin in eberron, you will never fail a save. you get to add your wis to every save, you can take the feat enhanced elan resistance and get +6 to your saves, and if that still doesnt help you have action points! Of course, I only take elans when I want a bit of confusion in my party... "Hey, I just cast enlarge person on you, why are you still medium?" and "He died, quick, reincarnate him.... OMG, HE'S A BEHOLDER NOW!!!"
Kouk 08-11-07, 12:09 PM	I think it is a decent book - if you can get it for cheaper than the cover price.
Tiarn 08-11-07, 12:13 PM	If you happen to be playing an elan, then go ahead and look at some of those feats. As an elan palidin in eberron, you will never fail a save. you get to add your wis to every save, you can take the feat enhanced elan resistance and get +6 to your saves, and if that still doesnt help you have action points! Of course, I only take elans when I want a bit of confusion in my party... "Hey, I just cast enlarge person on you, why are you still medium?" and "He died, quick, reincarnate him.... OMG, HE'S A BEHOLDER NOW!!!" Do you mean Cha bonus to saves? Or is this some variant in Eberron I don't know about?
Oregwath 08-11-07, 01:53 PM	I did mean CHA, my bad. I was working on a Psy Warrior for my next campaign all day so WIS was stuck in my mind. I will hang my head in shame and retreat from the boards until after I have slept....
Toxic_Shaman 08-11-07, 02:05 PM	Complete Psionic was a huge disappointment in a variety of ways. Part of it was the high expectations generated by the XPH, which in my opinion is the best 3.5 enhancement book written. 3.0 Psionics had some huge flaws and 3.5 fixed many of them, so my expectations for Complete Psionic were pretty high. But the book was terrible and it was like a big kick in the nads to the Psionic community: It seemed like WOTC was saying Yes, we'll give you your Psionics book, but we'll give you only a few nice ideas in with a lot of garbage, and surround it with enough filler that you won't notice there isn't much there. And if you do notice, so what, we don't really give a damn about Psionics anyway. I bought the book, and liked some of it, but loathed a good bit of the rest of it. If I had the cash, I'd probably buy Untapped Potential too. I don't have that book, but from what I've heard, and seeing the posts by the authors of UP on this board I suspect it to be much better.
suomynonAyletamitlU 08-11-07, 02:54 PM	I personally bought the CP and have not been particularly upset about my choice. That may just show my inexperience, I suppose, but there you go. I personally like the having the powers form the XPH reprinted in the CP, at least in the tables, because then I don't have to flip back and forth between the two. And while I have seen several errors and questionable decisions, without really looking for them, I haven't seen anything on the scale that the critics would argue--hardly the worst edited publication ever, at least in my opinion. And, not to start a war about it, I personally have no problem with the AC nerf--after all, it's not a summon, you're animating a semi-intelligent creature using only the power of your mind. They could say it has duration concentration and I wouldn't argue. I would definitely suggest at least browsing it at your friendly Barnes and Noble, or anywhere else you can, before you think about buying it, though. You may find that little or nothing appeals to you. I plan to make use of the Illumine Soul and Divine Mind in the campaign I'm in--no comments from the peanut gallery, if you please--in addition to using at least a couple of the new powers. So in sum, it's not completely without merit, just flawed, perhaps severely.
calronmoonflower 08-11-07, 03:19 PM	The Complete Psionic falls far short of its potential. I bought it and think overall it adds enough to the psionics to be worth it, unless your hair brained enough to include the dumb parts.
Tealgorthian 08-11-07, 03:59 PM	Hi, I'm The Anthro DM. I like Complete Psionics. Why? Because it leaves a lot of room for me to go "OMG ********" and change the rules. :) I have no idea what you mean. You know. I've been thinking about that AC "errata" in the CPsi. Wouldn't that be an example of a secondary source contradicting a primary source? I mean, I've never actually READ the change myself, so I have no idea what it actually says.
Tempest Stormwind 08-11-07, 04:26 PM	I have no idea what you mean. You know. I've been thinking about that AC "errata" in the CPsi. Wouldn't that be an example of a secondary source contradicting a primary source? I mean, I've never actually READ the change myself, so I have no idea what it actually says. "As astral construct (EPH 77) except as noted here. You can have only one astral construct shaped at any one time. If you shape another astral construct, any previous construct dissipates." Remember, the stated reason for this was wilders making big-ass constructs earlier. Which can still happen with this nerf.
Toxic_Shaman 08-11-07, 04:41 PM	Yes, and ACs are the only summons being nerfed, not arcane or divine summons. They must have changed it to benefit all those poor people playing Druids who were crying because their Animal Companion and Summoned Animals modified with Animal Growth spells were feeling threatened by the party Wilder having more than AC at a time....
MnemonicSV 08-12-07, 02:56 AM	1. Extremely poor editing. ComPsi had the worst editing of any professionally published book I've ever seen. I don't know... Stronghold Builder's Guide could give Complete Psionic a run for it's money (for worst edited published book). :D --- Seriously though, it's like you can't flip a page of CompPsi without either scratching your head or crying foul. It's only possible usefulness is to pick and choose optional materials out of it, and leave the rest behind. Does optional materials warrant the cover price? Depends on your point of view. Since not everybody uses all the optional material in any of the other Complete ___ series of books either, it's hard to completely discredit Complete Psionic based on how much useful material is found within it. All the Complete books have some optional material you use, and quite a bit you don't. The only difference is, you'll almost certainly get a lot less out of Complete Psionic than any of the other books.
Arco Versipellis 08-12-07, 03:19 AM	The book does have a lot of problems, but honstely I got about as much use for it as I did from a lot of my other books. The divine stuff is funky, but honestly, I don't see why psionics has to be anti-divine just like I don't see what other people think psionics is to "new" for fantasy roleplaying. A lot of my campaign revoles around the idea that psionics is being aware of you place within the natural and spiritual world. It was nice to see some ideas on the topic, even if I didn't use them much. The feats were mostly lame and redundent, but I like some of them a lot (Focused Skill User, Mental Juggernaut). Also, while I originally hated the host feats, I eventually expanded the idea a lot in my campaign setting. Soulknives with psi-like abilities and psicrystals. Its not in the book (though maybe it should have been), but I would have never come up with the idea without it. It did suck to find so few new powers in the book, but honestly, the reprints do make it convient to pick out powers. I paid thirty dollars for the book, but I paid forty dollars each for the Spell Compendium and the Magic Items Compendium. They were worth it, too. Plus, the lurk is a good class. Some of the items (the expanded psionatrixs) are neat. Also, I though synads were pretty cool as well.
InkBlot 08-12-07, 12:26 PM	I don't see why psionics has to be anti-divine Psionics isn't anti-divine, it just isn't divine. Psionic power comes from within the manifester, from his or her own mind, emotions, and willpower. They do not come from going to a church and asking nicely. Psionics don't have any special connection to celestials or fiends. It has no special connection to cosmic good or evil. If a psion wants to summon a celestial, he finds a way to meet that celestial (e.g., plane shift), makes a pact with the celestial (e.g., if you come to help me once in a while I'll fabricate a new church to your god every once in a while), and then uses contingent correspond to let the celestial know when he's in trouble. Porting divine spells to psionics doesn't mesh at all with the way powers are designed. Protection from evil is an abjuration, but it contains both telepathic and psychokinetic effects. It also has four variations, which all should have been rolled together. It's also too powerful for a 1st level power, since it does what several other powers do, but better. I'm glad that you found a use for the divine aspects of Complete Psionic. But they shouldn't have existed in the first place.
Skindrill422 08-12-07, 02:31 PM	I find it ok I like the feats in it and The Prestige classes are cool But they have nothing about Dromite like hardly anything that made my character sad
Nephlite 08-12-07, 04:22 PM	The book does have a lot of problems, but honstely I got about as much use for it as I did from a lot of my other books. The divine stuff is funky, but honestly, I don't see why psionics has to be anti-divine just like I don't see what other people think psionics is to "new" for fantasy roleplaying. So a Divine arcaner user: saill has arcane spell failure, no healing, but alignment restriction based on diety: considered psuedo-Divine would be okay with you? It would be so weird to see that: and that is what the Divine Mind is like.
CrimsonDeath 08-12-07, 08:13 PM	So a Divine arcaner user: saill has arcane spell failure, no healing, but alignment restriction based on diety: considered psuedo-Divine would be okay with you? It would be so weird to see that: and that is what the Divine Mind is like. What?
Tempest Stormwind 08-12-07, 08:18 PM	What? That's an analogy. Basically, if you had a divine class that had all the mechanics of an arcane class -- say, duskblade spell list, spell failure, and all that -- and nothing divine in it except the name and a deity-based alignment restriction, you would have an arcane Divine Mind (since the divine mind is all psi-mechanics except for a deity-based alignment restriction and the name).
sijigs 08-12-07, 09:44 PM	After all this time.. CompPsi threads still get a bite. *chomp chomp* :D
suomynonAyletamitlU 08-12-07, 10:06 PM	That's an analogy. Basically, if you had a divine class that had all the mechanics of an arcane class -- say, duskblade spell list, spell failure, and all that -- and nothing divine in it except the name and a deity-based alignment restriction, you would have an arcane Divine Mind (since the divine mind is all psi-mechanics except for a deity-based alignment restriction and the name). No offense, but it's a bad one. The arcane spell mechanic are all external to the caster--you have material components, the spells are triggered by words and actions. A divine arcane caster would have to use divine material components, divine spellbooks, divine gestures and divine... oh! You know what? That's largely what divine magic is anyway. Well, not entirely perhaps, but in large part, I think. Psionics are largely internal, especially for some classes like the Wilder. It's not coincidence that the feats are in flavors like "wild talent"--talent that just springs forth from nowhere. It's not inconceivable, and in fact makes very much sense to me, that such internal potential can be "unlocked" by a deity, and that the deity may choose to rescind his permission if you act outside the boundaries of his alignment. Granted, if you look only at the mechanics, it may look silly. Apparently it must look silly to a lot of people, because there's a lot of crap about the DM's "flavor" going around. But it pays to be reminded that things are not always as dumb as they may appear at first glance. Also, as long as I'm defending the CP for some reason... Yes, and ACs are the only summons being nerfed, not arcane or divine summons. As I said before, ACs are NOT summons. As the rule text of the power explicitly says, they are constructs. There is a psionic summon in the CP, called Planar Champion, and it is not 'nerfed' like AC is.
Tiarn 08-13-07, 12:20 AM	...As I said before, ACs are NOT summons. As the rule text of the power explicitly says, they are constructs. There is a psionic summon in the CP, called Planar Champion, and it is not 'nerfed' like AC is. You're absolutely right. As a matter of fact, the AC power is of the "creation" subtype. Yet there isn't a rule saying "a wizard may only ever have one wall of iron spell in existance at any time" is there? But now we're just arguing semantics. If you'll look at the effect of the spells summon whatever and the power astral construct they do the same thing, and that is "bring a creature here to defend/fight for you." All the rest is just fluff that has no bearing on the rules.
Arco Versipellis 08-13-07, 01:23 AM	The mechanical aspects of the divine-psionics interaction were not what particularly interested me. I looked at them to try and gain some insight into intertwining faith with psionics. The only instances I used the ardent and the divine mind, for cultist NPCs when I first bought the book. I'll never use them again, and neither would one of my players, with the main reason being that it complicates selecting powers drastically. The other (cooler) psionic classes with the church abilities of the Complete Champion workmuch better, but the book did help me to develop ideas for psionic wise men who knew as much about what they were as what they were not. Still, those mantle have seen a lot of use in my games. I couldn't get one of my clerics to take an alignment spell, much less one of my psionics, though I am not denying that it does sound like a problem, even with a lack of expertise the points you made make perfect sense. However, there are a few other powers that were really nice. And since psionics is such an awesome system, you can get them with nearly any psionic class. I have a lot of books with spells and items and subraces that I'll never use. Would I have liked Complete Psionics to have been better? Yes, because psionics is the best system, and it gets short changed the most. But it wasn't, so I tried to make the best of it, and in the end it isn't the book that I've used the least, so I'm cool with it.
concerro 08-13-07, 02:09 AM	The book seemed to be rushed to me. They could have had more new powers, and better feats. The fact that you can have only one astral construct is good, but for it to be a full round action to create one is bad. I can say two is a bit much becos I made a psion who was focus on making them and they were actually more powerful than my psion. It is a good thing nobody can take them and turn them against me.
Tiarn 08-13-07, 06:08 AM	The book seemed to be rushed to me. They could have had more new powers, and better feats. The fact that you can have only one astral construct is good, but for it to be a full round action to create one is bad. I can say two is a bit much becos I made a psion who was focus on making them and they were actually more powerful than my psion. It is a good thing nobody can take them and turn them against me. So you're arguing that the nerf was deserved because you can "summon" something that is more powerful in melee combat than a psion?! :uh-huh: You obviously haven't seen a druid cast summon nature's ally properly. Take a gander at the optimization boards for summoning druids; then try telling us the AC nerf was deserved.
Todd 08-13-07, 10:07 AM	Tiarn, I agree, but that was the off the cuff reason given. See this: http://www.haloscan.com/comments/brucecordell/E20060406204054/
Nephlite 08-13-07, 01:24 PM	From that Thread: ERRATA: I hope errata will eventually be released CP. If you believe you have errata (and it sounds like some of you certainly do, such as the Anarchic Initiate issue), send it in a brief a form as possible (but include page number, and relevant header) to me at cperrata@brucecordell.com. I or someone else at Wizards will go through it in about a month or 2 after the book has sold into its cycle. Did someone send Bruce the errata and they just forgot us or did it not get sent to Bruce?
suomynonAyletamitlU 08-13-07, 09:35 PM	You're absolutely right. As a matter of fact, the AC power is of the "creation" subtype. Yet there isn't a rule saying "a wizard may only ever have one wall of iron spell in existance at any time" is there? A better example might be Animate Object since it has to give some semblance of intelligence to the creation, but the answer is the same; you're correct. But now we're just arguing semantics. If you'll look at the effect of the spells summon whatever and the power astral construct they do the same thing, and that is "bring a creature here to defend/fight for you." All the rest is just fluff that has no bearing on the rules. That seems to imply that there's no reason behind the rules except game balance. As someone with a definite artistic streak, I can say that sometimes the "fluff" is the substance of the thing, or at least the inspiration, and the game rules are at best secondary. Not always, and the result almost always needs to go through an editing process to make it fit inside the rules, but a "rules are everything" view is, IMO, a good way to overlook the substance of a thing. Then, I did read the above thread and noticed that the AC nerf was in fact a balance issue, not a "fluff" issue. But as far as I'm concerned, it's one that makes a certain, admittedly fluffy sense.
Tempest Stormwind 08-13-07, 10:10 PM	It's a balance issue in the same way that fighters swinging their swords all day is a balance issue. The stated reason Bruce gave ("wilders who spend feats to learn that power can produce constructs that are too strong") isn't fixed by the nerf at all, and the secondary reason he gave ("summoners with all their creatures take up too much time at the table, therefore we won't allow more than one 'pet' at a time") is contradicted by the multi-summon powers introduced in the book (and the Summon Monster spells, for that matter). Furthermore, the constructs, numerically, are similar to earth elementals -- if there was something to complain about it was their high natural armor, not the fact that each had a few dozen attacks or spell-like abilities to use. To me, the only reason they could have possibly had was "because the ectopic adept sucked and we wanted to give it a reason to be played, once per day". If you're going to limit the use of multiple constructs, do it the way incarnum did with Conjure Midnight Construct. The basic constructs are each kinda weak, but you can invest essentia in each one you create to power them up. Since essentia is limited, though, each one you create weakens you a bit, and the more of them you make the less powerful each one is.