Post/Author/DateTime	Post
The_Mess 01-10-08, 11:29 AM	This has been raised on the forum before, but I'd like to revisit it. By way of a hypothetical, I'm playing a 3rd level psychic warrior with Expansion and Vigor as his first two powers, and has the Linked Power feat, Metapowered onto Vigor. Can I manifest Vigor + Expansion for free? RAW, I can't see any reason this wouldn't work. Can I manifest Vigor augmented four times and Expansion for 3 pp, essentially circumvented Manifest Level limits on pp since I'm not only getting more out of Vigor than I put in, but more than I should be capable of at this level? Is this overpowered, or does the fact that you've spent two feats on the effect justify it? (Notice, I didn't ask if the first was overpowered.) I've just realized, a psion could get Linked Power and Metapower at first level and have an endless supply of free whatever he wanted an endless supply of, plus whatever he's pairing it with. (Edited: I forgot about the necessity of spending your focus. That prevents our first level psion from doing this every round and only makes it half as over-powered as I thought.) Would a good house-rule fix for this mess be rewriting Linked Power so it read that it had no metapsionic cost, but you had to pay for both manifestations. That way, there's no metapsionic cost for Metapower to reduce.
TheKeyofE 01-10-08, 12:22 PM	Hmm...reading both feats, it's a little fuzzy, but my interpretation would say that metapower only reduces the cost of the linked power, not the total cost. That is to say, you still have to pay full price for the power you manifest this round, even if the linked power is only 1pp. So in your example, you manifested Expansion with linked + metapowered Vigor, you get a 2pp Vigor for free, but still have to pay 1pp for your Expansion, as opposed to 1pp Vigor and 1pp Expansion both free. But as I said, it's a little fuzzy. And it's Complete Psionic. But now you've got me thinking...linked + metapowered Bestow Power? 4pp this round to get 2 pp this round and 2 next round. Add a Torc of Power Preservation (or Wild Surge or similar something or other) and you have YET ANOTHER infinite pp combo. EDIT: Neg that, chummer. Linked + metapowered Bestow Power added to any 1pp self buff with (minutes/level) duration. Free 5 HP Vigor for life! Free Expansion for life! Free Offensive Precognition for life! EDIT 2: On second thought, you'd have to take metapower for each buff. Still useful, but not nearly as cool as I thought. If you metapower Bestow Power, than whatever you manifest linked to it basically costs one less pp, like a Torc.
awaken_D_M_golem 01-10-08, 04:28 PM	The_Mess - Nice. I don't have the book of vile darkness 2.0 - a.k.a. CPsi - sitting right in front of me, but ... Linked makes the second power the metapsionic cost, which metapower reduce. Empower is reduced to 0 pp. My guess (until I reread it later) is a 1st level power, even augmented to 2 pp, would have it's own cost reduced to 0 pp. Close. The higher augmentations are paid as usual. Vigor aug'd to 5 pp, linked, Energy Ray aug'd to 3 pp, metapower, would cost 5 + 3 - 2 = 6 pp. Oh, wait, almost exactly what TheKeyofE is saying. Linked + metapower Bestow Power, as a one shot combo ala the tricky wording = new infinite pp combo. 2 feats, one power, and one more discount = it works. As per usual, some of the higher level versions of recharge, take less resources. Yummy.
The_Mess 01-10-08, 04:57 PM	Just for the record (I probably should have done this first): Linked Power: Using this feat increases the power point cost of the power manifested this round by a number equal to the power point cost of the linked power. That part makes it sound like the Metapower discount would only apply to whatever is manifested second. I.e., no free unaugmented Vigor+Expansion. But then it goes on to say: Thus, if you manifest energy stun and energy burst as the linked power, the metapsionic cost is 8. The example contradicting what it just said! Hmm, it almost sounds like something from Complete Psionic...