Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Nightshade 08-09-07, 01:03 PM	Never made a psionic character before other than a Soulknife. So, help me go through the Metapsionic feats to determine what Metapsionic feats work best for what disciplines and powers. Burrowing power Chain power Delay power Empower power Enlarge power Extend power Maximize power Opportunity power Quicken power Split psionic ray (ok, so great for egoists?) Twin power Unconditional power Widen power For Wizards, I have found that widen, delay, and enlarge are rarely used and not great except for specific circumstances. Whereas, chain, quicken and maximize are often chosen. True for Psions?
InkBlot 08-09-07, 01:23 PM	Not quite. First of all, metapsionics are less important to psions than metamagic is to wizards. A wizard's fireball won't do any more damage after 10th level, unless the wizard applies a meta feat to it. A psion's energy bolt power, on the other hand, will always do as much damage as he can pump power points into it. Metapsionics are good at making powers more effecient, but aren't as good as metamagics at making a spell more powerful. Chain Power can only be applied to one or two powers in the XPH. You would probably be better off just taking Expanded Knowledge (Energy Current). Keep in mind that the metapsionic power point cost counts towards the limit of power points you can spend. This means that you often have to choose between augmenting a power or applying a metapsi feat. For example, if a 7th level psion manifests a Quickened energy ray, it's only going to deal 1d6 damage. edit: A better example would be a 5th level psion manifesting a Maximized energy ray. The Maximized energy ray will only deal 6 damage for five power points. Meanwhile, a fully augmented energy ray would have dealt 5d6 damage for the same cost. Due to the power point limit, it's not worth it to take Maximize Power until your manifester level hits 9. Even then, the benefit will be minor for a few more levels yet. edit 2: Also keep in mind that every metapsionic feat you use requires you to expend your psionic focus. This means that you can't stack Maximize and Empower like a wizard can, and that you can't use metapsionics two turns in a row (except Quicken or Opportunity Power), unless you take even more feats to get around this limitation. To stack two metapsi feats you need Psicrystal Affinity and Psicrystal Containment. If you just want to use metapsi feats more often, Psionic Meditation would be more economical.
Tealgorthian 08-09-07, 01:34 PM	I'm playing a low level Shaper, and honestly, the Psionic feats I have found to be MOST helpful are Overchannel and Talented. +1 ML is pretty big at low levels, even if you have to bust your focus for it. That said, I believe for general purposes, Twin power is probably the way to go. Split Psionic Ray can be pretty handy if you use alot of Rays (Crystal Shard, Disintegrate)
Omen_of_Peace 08-09-07, 02:31 PM	Burrowing Power is fun and can also be useful : with high enough psicraft, you can ignore walls when you want. For instance, use Burrowing Touchsight to feel what's behind a door, and then use whatever disabling power you want against creatures on the other side, again with burrowing power.
munin 08-10-07, 09:42 AM	Here is an thread (http://forums.gleemax.com/wotc_archive/index.php/t-298304) that analyzes expected damage with metapsionic feats (though it seems to be archived now which makes the tables less readable). However, it doesn't consider overchannel, which is a huge oversight. From my own spreadsheet analysis, for expending a single psionic focus on d6 damage powers, overchannel+talented is best at low levels, empower is better at ML 11th+, and twin is better at ML 19th+. Maximize doesn't overtake empower until ML 19th, by which point twin is usually a better investment. If you don't want to spend two feats on overchannel+talented, you can skip talented and use vigor to soak the overchannel damage (plus no need to expend focus, or you can spend the focus on something else). If you don't want overchannel at all, empower shouldn't be used until at least ML 7th (when its benefit outweighs its cost). Maximize is a good choice for d6-1 powers, like sonic powers, starting around ML 11th. Overchannel and twin can be used on powers that don't have variable numeric effects as well, so they can be useful even when they're not the best damage increasers. Split psionic ray is excellent for rays (crystal shard, energy ray, disintegrate) especially at mid to high levels when ranged touch attacks get easier. Keep in mind that augmentation spent on metapsionic feats to increase damage is not being spent on DC-increasing augments, so sometimes its better not to empower, etc. quicken isn't terribly useful for damaging powers until high levels, but can be great with entangling ectoplasm and other useful low-level powers, as well as self-buffs. A quickened schism is all kinds of fun. Quicken's high cost means you won't be using it on your recently gained powers, which made me sad, so I developed a variant called Hurry Power (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=822188) with a lower cost but which drastically decreases the power's duration.
FangsofChaos 08-10-07, 08:23 PM	I always take the psionic body feat, that's +2 for any psionic feat you have, including that one, so if you take a lot of metapsionic feats, you can get a nice boost in hp as well.
InkBlot 08-11-07, 12:45 AM	Metapsionic feats are not psionic feats. They don't give you extra HP if you have Psionic Body.
Tedronai 08-11-07, 02:19 PM	However illogical that is (and it seems to me to be INCREDIBLY illogical), it's true. Metapsionic feats aren't Psionic feats.
munin 08-12-07, 09:23 AM	...and it seems to me to be INCREDIBLY illogical... Psionic feats are supernatural abilities, a change to your very being, while metapsionic feats are just clever tricks you've picked up for manifesting your powers in a different way.