Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Radijs 09-20-07, 05:20 PM	In a campaign in which I'm a player there's another player who just started playing an Elan Psion(telepath). We're a mix of level 9 and 10 characters the psion is level 9 and during the last encounter. (A real tough one) the Elan showed how incredible the resilience ability is of the Elan race. During the fight, which was I think around CR 12 or 13 he negated nearly 200 points of damage while at the same time manifesting his powers every round. This made both me and the DM wonder if that ability isn't a little bit too much. So my questions are: 1. Is resilience indeed overpowered? 2. Is there an elegant solution to keep the Elan balanced in normal play?
Artector 09-20-07, 05:33 PM	Lets see, 100 power points for 200 hp.... 72 base 27 bonus (24 int, its possible) 1 (racial) 27 (Psionic Talent feat x6) ___ 127 Power Points/day 200 hp damage, -100 power points. 27 left over. That's 3 uses of his highest level powers left. Its possible he did that. But he wouldn't have much stamina beyond that. He couldn't last another encounter. Though more info would give a better picture. EDIT~Sorry, had resilience backwards at first. Had to re-write my post.
Radijs 09-20-07, 05:39 PM	Tick-Tock :)
The_Shaman 09-20-07, 05:48 PM	Let's see, in one encounter he burned resources for several ones, and all on a defensive feature. It is literally a life-saver, but at a hefty price.
CrimsonDeath 09-20-07, 05:50 PM	Lets see, 100 power points for 200 hp.... 72 base 27 bonus (24 int, its possible) 1 (racial) 27 (Psionic Talent feat x6) ___ 127 Power Points/day 200 hp damage, -100 power points. 27 left over. That's 3 uses of his highest level powers left. Its possible he did that. But he wouldn't have much stamina beyond that. He couldn't last another encounter. Though more info would give a better picture. EDIT~Sorry, had resilience backwards at first. Had to re-write my post. If he had the Enhanced Elan Resilience feat from CPsi, it only would've been 50 PP. Still roughly half his daily allotment, and he hasn't accomplished anything aside from not dying. If your DM had thrown another encounter at you before giving you the opportunity to rest, the Elan would've been useless. So, in "normal play" (that is, 3-5 encounters per day), he's fine. Also, note that the OP didn't say the Elan was throwing his powers at full strength. He could've been dropping things like Psionic Grease and Entangling Ectoplasm.
Radijs 09-20-07, 05:52 PM	Lets take out the mathbook: Level 9 psion with an int of 24. He gets 75 PP from his class and another 31 from his ability score. As far as I know he has no feats that grant him extra PP. So thats a total of 106 PP Now during the encounter he manifested 1 control light, 1 telekinetic thrust, 1 or 2 crisis of breath, 1 mind crush and 3 psychic dominates but those three came from a psicrown. Later after the encounter he said that he negated somewhere around 190 damage. But he could have just counted the PP he had expended and multiplied the amount by 2 and called that amount as nixed damage. At the end of the encounter he had 11 PP left so yes there wasn't much left in him. But the encounter was very dangerous. 2 PC's died. I would've died if I wasn't forced to flee when my character was panicked I would probably have died as well.
Tempest Stormwind 09-20-07, 05:53 PM	I get the impression he negated nearly all the damage he recieved. Did he use the ability more than once in the round? If so, he broke the rules. If he didn't, then he was only being targeted once per round, and that's when Resilience has the best chance of shining.
Radijs 09-20-07, 05:55 PM	Ah there we have some news! I didn't know it was an immediate action. That should help a lot. Its still a nice ability but now at least I can see balance again.
sijigs 09-20-07, 08:34 PM	Ah there we have some news! I didn't know it was an immediate action. That should help a lot. Its still a nice ability but now at least I can see balance again. LOL. This always catches people.. the fact that you have to have an immediate action to use it. :rolleyes: Moving on...
Sagetim 09-20-07, 08:47 PM	LOL. This always catches people.. the fact that you have to have an immediate action to use it. :rolleyes: Moving on... a 12 to 13 encounter for 9's and 10's? 2 of your guys died? hmm. oh, I thought it was worth mentioning: the '1 pp for naturally psionic' is actually supposed to be 2. It's in the errata if you ever feel like looking it up. Along with the fact that there is no maximum to Elan age. As well as the fact that they horribly misprinted the soulknife bab progresstion starting at level 15. There's a few other problems, but they're all in the errata (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20060531a). In any case, if he managed to negate 200 damage, then he must have been burned down to 0 or near 0. As well, he probably wasn't being hit as much as he should have been. What was his AC? how many were attacking him each round? and did he try to pull off any 'quickened' powers?
Radijs 09-21-07, 03:42 AM	Well if this player where to cheat he'd cheat out of ignorance. Though he has been playing DnD for over a year now he still has trouble grasping a lot of the rules. I estimated the encounter level. I could be wrong about the actual CR. But judge for yourself: We port into the temple and we see 10 priests standing on a pentacle. 5 at the tips and 5 at the intersections. In the middle there is a second circle with a dodecahedron of silver in it. Next to the silver thing the grand master is standing. We are beset by 4 hellcats who grapple both the psion and our cleric. The other two attack me but thankfully my AC is too high and the DM rolled horribly. First we're forced to deal with them and their natural invisibility makes it impossible for us to deal with them effectively. Only I could fight them effectively because I had "hearing the air". So we tangle with them for a round or two and then the psion manifests control light darkening the room and making the hellcats visible. Well we battle the hellcats, by know the cleric is down into the negatives and I'm realizing that I wont be able to kill the hellcats in time before the party dies. So I decide to go for the main prize. I drop a searing charge + searing blade on the grand master hitting him for 49 fire damage and 14 normal damage but the entire attack has no effect. So now the psion starts using his psicrown and starts dominating the hellcats and the sorceror gets his blasting game going. I grab the silver thing hoping it will nix the ritual ignoring the AOO and using Shadow stride to port behind the party. By now the psion owns three of the four hellcats and some invisible NPC has dropped some healing into the cleric. We spend some time battling the devil and the last hellcat and the dice gods have blessed us because the bone devil consistantly fails to save against the burning blood effect the sorc. had dropped on him. But not before I fail against its fear aura and flee the scene dropping the silver thing and my sword. So now its the psion and his 3 hellcats, the sorceror and the nigh-dead priest against 1 hellcat and a bone devil. But now a whole lotta mooks start pouring in. low-level cultists & the crew of our ship and the whole thing erupts into a melee. Until some creature hanging in the sky (We had thought it to be an avatar of pelor all the time. Big shining sun thats all we saw) Starts bombing us with fireballs (10d6 DC22) reducing the cleric to ash in a single blow and the sorceror a round later. Thankfully the cleric had finished the devil with an inflict critical the round before he died. Somewhere inbetween a pair of NPC's flew up to that thing in the sky and blew it up somehow. There's a big explosion of light just as I run back into the temple. By the time I come running back from the fear effect I'm in the nosebleed section. I run over the battlefield to see if any of the dropped party members still lives. And then the city guard came and arrested us. Thats a fairly accurate description of what happened.
Sagetim 09-21-07, 03:52 AM	Well if this player where to cheat he'd cheat out of ignorance. Though he has been playing DnD for over a year now he still has trouble grasping a lot of the rules. I estimated the encounter level. I could be wrong about the actual CR. But judge for yourself: We port into the temple and we see 10 priests standing on a pentacle. 5 at the tips and 5 at the intersections. In the middle there is a second circle with a dodecahedron of silver in it. Next to the silver thing the grand master is standing. We are beset by 4 hellcats who grapple both the psion and our cleric. The other two attack me but thankfully my AC is too high and the DM rolled horribly. First we're forced to deal with them and their natural invisibility makes it impossible for us to deal with them effectively. Only I could fight them effectively because I had "hearing the air". So we tangle with them for a round or two and then the psion manifests control light darkening the room and making the hellcats visible. Well we battle the hellcats, by know the cleric is down into the negatives and I'm realizing that I wont be able to kill the hellcats in time before the party dies. So I decide to go for the main prize. I drop a searing charge + searing blade on the grand master hitting him for 49 fire damage and 14 normal damage but the entire attack has no effect. So now the psion starts using his psicrown and starts dominating the hellcats and the sorceror gets his blasting game going. I grab the silver thing hoping it will nix the ritual ignoring the AOO and using Shadow stride to port behind the party. By now the psion owns three of the four hellcats and some invisible NPC has dropped some healing into the cleric. We spend some time battling the devil and the last hellcat and the dice gods have blessed us because the bone devil consistantly fails to save against the burning blood effect the sorc. had dropped on him. But not before I fail against its fear aura and flee the scene dropping the silver thing and my sword. So now its the psion and his 3 hellcats, the sorceror and the nigh-dead priest against 1 hellcat and a bone devil. But now a whole lotta mooks start pouring in. low-level cultists & the crew of our ship and the whole thing erupts into a melee. Until some creature hanging in the sky (We had thought it to be an avatar of pelor all the time. Big shining sun thats all we saw) Starts bombing us with fireballs (10d6 DC22) reducing the cleric to ash in a single blow and the sorceror a round later. Thankfully the cleric had finished the devil with an inflict critical the round before he died. Somewhere inbetween a pair of NPC's flew up to that thing in the sky and blew it up somehow. There's a big explosion of light just as I run back into the temple. By the time I come running back from the fear effect I'm in the nosebleed section. I run over the battlefield to see if any of the dropped party members still lives. And then the city guard came and arrested us. Thats a fairly accurate description of what happened. yeah, be probably shoulda died when the hellcat grappled him. They get 2 claws, a bite, and if he's manifesting, Aoo's.
CrimsonDeath 09-21-07, 04:20 AM	yeah, be probably shoulda died when the hellcat grappled him. They get 2 claws, a bite, and if he's manifesting, Aoo's. Oddly enough, no AOO's (at least not from the one grappling him). You don’t threaten any squares while grappling. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm#grapple) Presumably, that includes the square you're in.
Radijs 09-21-07, 04:35 AM	Then I suppose I should be glad that we made the mistake regarding the Elan or we'd be facing a total party kill with probably only my character surviving and running off ne'er to return. Because knowing the DM failure would have meant that the priests would go and complain to the city guard who already no longer needed a reason to go after me, more they needed an excuse. On a sidenote: dropping the monsters (4xcr7, 1xcr9 & 1cr10) in the encounter calculator made a cr 13 encounter. I dubbed the sun monster CR 10 but if I counted the dice the DM rolled correctly it would have a caster level of 15. But it only dropped level 3 and 2 spells on us. Those being fireballs and scorching rays.
Lycanthromancer 09-21-07, 05:51 PM	Ow. :(
Sagetim 09-21-07, 07:47 PM	Then I suppose I should be glad that we made the mistake regarding the Elan or we'd be facing a total party kill with probably only my character surviving and running off ne'er to return. Because knowing the DM failure would have meant that the priests would go and complain to the city guard who already no longer needed a reason to go after me, more they needed an excuse. On a sidenote: dropping the monsters (4xcr7, 1xcr9 & 1cr10) in the encounter calculator made a cr 13 encounter. I dubbed the sun monster CR 10 but if I counted the dice the DM rolled correctly it would have a caster level of 15. But it only dropped level 3 and 2 spells on us. Those being fireballs and scorching rays. cr 13 encounter? uhuh...I'm finding it hard to figure out a valid reason for sending a party against something 4 cr's higher than the lowest member. Now, if it was a 'final boss' kind of fight, then it makes sense. If this is a standard fight for your group though...jeez, your DM is mean.
CrimsonDeath 09-21-07, 08:03 PM	I'm finding it hard to figure out a valid reason for sending a party against something 4 cr's higher than the lowest member. Now, if it was a 'final boss' kind of fight, then it makes sense. I guess it's not that hard after all, then, is it?
Sagetim 09-22-07, 12:48 AM	I guess it's not that hard after all, then, is it? if I had to fight a group that equaled out to cr 13, and none of the group was something I could take out with a single fireball, I'd be pretty worried for my survival rate. Especially when two hellcats are part of the fight (which is enough to be a cr 9 anyway).
Radijs 09-22-07, 04:31 AM	It was pretty much a boss fight The temple was a fake with some kind of arcane circle that transformed the force of people's belief into arcane power and sent it up to the sun. We pretty much destroyed the cultus with our efforts. And I just learned that the ball of silver is something called the Chronocorza. A major artefact related to time travel.
The_Shaman 09-22-07, 11:42 AM	Then you better be glad for the elan resilience feature. Otherwise, you'd have killed your party* - I think gave them a tough nut to crack. *: I presume this was not your intention. If you actually wanted a TPK, sorry.
Radijs 09-22-07, 12:03 PM	I had no intention of killing the party. This is because I'm not the DM.
The_Shaman 09-24-07, 07:51 AM	Oops, sorry, I forgot that part of the OP with the discussion. My bad