Post/Author/DateTime	Post
MindFlayerZoidberg 12-20-07, 12:29 AM	In my constant efforts to anticipate and nullify my DM's apprehension that Psionics is overpowered, I was wondering if anyone has a good list of Powers that are better than their magical equivalents and also Spells that a Psion cannot match (probably taken from Complete Books and PHBII). I would want to bring this to his attention now instead of in the middle of game . . . after I have just killed one of his NPC's with a power that he didn't read in great detail. So far, I have seen that Dispel Psionics and Psionic Revivify are a lot more efficient. Even I was thinking (in my own campaign) of upping the augmentation cost to Dispel for a 2pp/+1 dispel check ratio. I think I alleviated his worries over Mind Thrust a bit. We are 5th level right now, right when Wizards start getting some nice spells, but I have never played a wizard, so I don't know all the powerful spells that a Psion can't match. Any help would be appreciated.:P
InkBlot 12-20-07, 12:55 AM	Dispel psionic's strength depends on how you read it. Psionic revivify has the massive limitation of needing to be used within rounds of an ally's death. In many many situations, this will just result in either him dying again right away, or you dying beside him. In yet more situations, it may be physically impossible to get to the dead character in time. Incredibly useful, but much much riskier than arcane/divine bring-you-back-to-life spells. Read thoughts (the psionic power) is better than detect thoughts. You get all the information instantly with read thoughts. Grease and entangling ectoplasm are surprisingly powerful, even if a wizard with a net can do the exact same thing. Know direction and location can seem powerful. Oh! Clairvoyant sense! This one will drive your DM insane if he isn't prepared. Come to think of it, most of the seer powers will; sensitivity to psychic impressions, object reading, etc.. That's all I can think of at the moment.
MindFlayerZoidberg 12-20-07, 01:02 AM	Great points. I haven't used those in game play yet and relating how they work in actual experience will be good to bring up. I am an egoist, so I am gearing my character up for Metamorphosis. I read the threads talking about Dispel Psionics. But how do you interpret the rules so a 9th lvl Psion doesn't have a +17 dispel check mod when spending 4 PP?
The_Mess 12-20-07, 01:14 AM	Most of the powers with "energy" in the name are better than their mage equivalents, if only for being more flexible. One power, four different energy types. A wizard or sorceror would have to know several different spells to acheive the same effect. This is balanced somewhat by the fact that psions know far, far fewer powers than a sorceror knows spells (and a wizard is effectively limitless).
CrimsonDeath 12-20-07, 03:49 AM	I read the threads talking about Dispel Psionics. But how do you interpret the rules so a 9th lvl Psion doesn't have a +17 dispel check mod when spending 4 PP? That's the powerful way to read it. It's probably more balanced if the augment just raises the cap on your dispel check rather than providing a flat bonus. One possible complaint is that some psionic powers are more versatile than arcane/divine equivalents. Animal Affinity is like six spells rolled into one-- six spells that only the Artificer and Archivist have access to all of. Psionic Plane Shift has no focus component, so the DM can't keep you out of a particular plane by refusing to let you have a focus attuned to it. Oh, and while the Energy powers are better than energy-based direct damage spells at the level when you get them, they drop off quickly because the psionicist needs to augment them to stay competitive (and direct damage isn't that great anyway). The only Energy power that stays competitive (and, frankly, outclasses the arcane equivalent) is Energy Wall. The sonic version can be used to dig trenches and knock down buildings on the cheap. The Energy Adaptation line is arguably better than the arcane/divine methods of protecting oneself from energy. Energy Adaptation and Energy Conversion protect against all five energy types, and all three have a built-in Quicken augment. But then, the arcane Energy Immunity (PHB2?) lasts 24 hours while the psionic version (CPsi?) only lasts one round per level. Also, there's no psionic version of Protection from Energy.
ToastedAmphibian 12-20-07, 07:07 AM	I was wondering if anyone has a good list of Powers that are better than their magical equivalents Expansion, inertial armor
Bacris 12-20-07, 09:18 AM	Expansion, inertial armor Um, seriously? Enlarge Person Transmutation Level: Sor/Wiz 1, Strength 1 Components: V, S, M Casting Time: 1 round Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels) Target: One humanoid creature Duration: 1 min./level (D) Saving Throw: Fortitude negates Spell Resistance: Yes This spell causes instant growth of a humanoid creature, doubling its height and multiplying its weight by 8. This increase changes the creature’s size category to the next larger one. The target gains a +2 size bonus to Strength, a –2 size penalty to Dexterity (to a minimum of 1), and a –1 penalty on attack rolls and AC due to its increased size. A humanoid creature whose size increases to Large has a space of 10 feet and a natural reach of 10 feet. This spell does not change the target’s speed. If insufficient room is available for the desired growth, the creature attains the maximum possible size and may make a Strength check (using its increased Strength) to burst any enclosures in the process. If it fails, it is constrained without harm by the materials enclosing it— the spell cannot be used to crush a creature by increasing its size. All equipment worn or carried by a creature is similarly enlarged by the spell. Melee and projectile weapons affected by this spell deal more damage. Other magical properties are not affected by this spell. Any enlarged item that leaves an enlarged creature’s possession (including a projectile or thrown weapon) instantly returns to its normal size. This means that thrown weapons deal their normal damage, and projectiles deal damage based on the size of the weapon that fired them. Magical properties of enlarged items are not increased by this spell. Multiple magical effects that increase size do not stack,. Enlarge person counters and dispels reduce person. Enlarge person can be made permanent with a permanency spell. Material Component: A pinch of powdered iron Expansion Psychometabolism Level: Psychic warrior 1 Display: Olfactory Manifesting Time: 1 standard action Range: Personal Target: You Duration: 1 round./level (D) Power Points: 1 This power causes instant growth, doubling your height, length, and width and multiplying your weight by 8. This increase changes your size category to the next larger one. You gain a +2 size bonus to Strength, a –2 size penalty to Dexterity (to a minimum effective Dexterity score of 1), a –1 size penalty on attack rolls, and a –1 size penalty to Armor Class due to your increased size. If your new size is Large or larger, you have a space of at least 10 feet and a natural reach of at least 10 feet. This power doesn’t change your speed. If insufficient room is available for the desired growth, you attain the maximum possible size and can make a Strength check (using your increased Strength score) to burst any enclosures in the process. If you fail, you are constrained without harm by the materials enclosing you—you cannot crush yourself to death by increasing your size. All your equipment, worn or carried, is similarly expanded by this power. Melee and projectile weapons deal more damage. Other psionic or magical properties are not affected by this power. Any affected item that leaves your possession (including a projectile or thrown weapon) instantly returns to its normal size. This means that thrown weapons deal their normal damage (projectiles deal damage based on the size of the weapon that fired them). Multiple effects that increase size do not stack, which means (among other things) that you can’t use a second manifestation of this power to further expand yourself. Augment: You can augment this power in one or more of the following ways. 1. If you spend 6 additional power points, this power increases your size by two size categories instead of one. You gain a +4 size bonus to Strength, a –4 size penalty to Dexterity (to a minimum effective Dexterity score of 1), a –2 size penalty on attack rolls, and a –2 size penalty to Armor Class due to your increased size. 2. If you spend 6 additional power points, you can manifest this power as a swift action instead of a standard action. 3. If you spend 2 additional power points, this power’s duration is 1 minute per level rather than 1 round per level. The only way Expansion is better is that it can grow two sizes - as a 4th level power. In all other aspects, it is sub-par to Enlarge Person. Inertial Armor Psychokinesis Level: Psion/wilder 1, psychic warrior 1 Display: Visual; see text Manifesting Time: 1 standard action Range: Personal Target: You Duration: 1 hour/level (D) Power Points: 1; see text Your mind generates a tangible field of force that provides a +4 armor bonus to Armor Class. Unlike mundane armor, inertial armor entails no armor check penalty or speed reduction. Because inertial armor is composed of psychokinetic force, incorporeal creatures can’t bypass it the way they do normal armor. Your inertial armor can be invisible or can appear as a colored glow, at your option. The armor bonus provided by inertial armor does not stack with the armor bonus provided by regular armor. Augment: For every 2 additional power points you spend, the armor bonus to Armor Class increases by 1. Mage Armor Conjuration (Creation) [Force] Level: Sor/Wiz 1 Components: V, S, F Casting Time: 1 standard action Range: Touch Target: Creature touched Duration: 1 hour/level (D) Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless) Spell Resistance: No An invisible but tangible field of force surrounds the subject of a mage armor spell, providing a +4 armor bonus to AC. Unlike mundane armor, mage armor entails no armor check penalty, arcane spell failure chance, or speed reduction. Since mage armor is made of force, incorporeal creatures can’t bypass it the way they do normal armor. Focus: A piece of cured leather. So the only reason you're saying Inertial Armor is better is because it can be augmented? If you use that line of reasoning, most psionic powers will be better than their magic counterparts, since magic doesn't have augmentation...
archangel_arcanis_07 12-20-07, 09:58 AM	ah but there is a difference magic does augment you just don't have to pay for it. how many spells have larger effects based off of a higher caster level? as to spells that do things psionics can't: the big ones are Limited wish, wish , and miricle. Yes i know psionics have reality revition and its lesser cousin but those are waker than wish their counterparts. Also Gate is just insane and psionics thankfully has equivalent of that. Planer binding series and a high diplomacy is cruel to a DM. Polymorph is better than metamorphasis for the free augmentation as well as little details to it. Same goes with shapechange and greater metamorph. Also most spells that have psionic equivalents are lower levels than their psionic equivalent giving you crunchy goodness at least 2 lvls early.
Suspect_Unusual 12-20-07, 11:26 AM	Wait, psionics has an equivalent to Gate? Or was that a typo?
archangel_arcanis_07 12-20-07, 12:08 PM	typo, i forgot the n't in hasn't on that one.
The_Mess 12-20-07, 01:38 PM	Bacris, the version of Expansion in the book is 1 minute/level, augmentable to 10 minutes/level (corrected in errata). The SRD disagrees and the two HTML SRDs disagree with both of those. There is a thread already on the boards discussing this confusion, but the book version is quite nice compared to the arcane once you can augment it.
Bacris 12-20-07, 02:29 PM	I don't think it's reasonable to compare a version of a power when errata is available for it. That'd be like saying Mindfeeder from the book is too good, even though errata pretty heavily nerfed it.
JulesCARV 12-20-07, 04:49 PM	-Metamorphosis with Metamorphic Transfer -- in some ways, more powerful than Polymorph. (Yes, it's personal rather than touch, and yes, there's also some Assume Supernatural Ability feat from Savage Species or something, but that's from a widely disreputably supplement, whereas Metamorphosis and Metamorphic Transfer are from the same book.) -Temporal Acceleration -- psions get it six levels sooner than wizards get time stop.
ToastedAmphibian 12-20-07, 08:09 PM	most psionic powers will be better than their magic counterparts, since magic doesn't have augmentation. I guess we agree then!
JimProfit 12-20-07, 08:40 PM	Your GM must have a wisdom score of 4. There's no way psionics is more powerful then spellcasting, ever. Even if the powers themselves were somehow better (which they're not), powerpoints are consecutively weaker then spells-per-day. Say you're comparing energy ray to burning hands, i'm using this as an example cause hey, burning hands is a suck spell, so i'm giving your GM the bennefit of the doubt. Energy ray costs 1 powerpoint, you exhaust your powerpoint reserve to manifest it regardless of how weak it is. If you have 100 powerpoints, you now have 99. burning hands is a level 1 spell, so it takes up a level 1 spell slot from your spells per day list. It has no effect on your other spells-per-day. So you can still cast the game shattering level 9 spells. Secondly, burning hands will deal more damage as you progress as a caster, maximum 5d4. It has a range of 15ft, and can be halved in damage with a succesful reflex save. Energy ray has a larger range, 25ft +5 feet per two character levels. It's also much more versatile in it can be any type of element you want. Sonic, acid, fire, ice, lightning, whatever. It also has no saving throw unlike burning hands. The differance is energy ray only deals 1d6 damage, and will always only deal 1d6 damage unless you allocate more points to do otherwise. You litteraly depend on more powerpoints to increase damage. And you can only allocate a number of extra powerpoints equal to your manifestor level. By fifth level comparible to the spellcaster, you're dealing 5d6 damage, at 35feet, of any element of your choosing. But at the cost of 5 powerpoints, where as the spellcaster's burning hands will always only takeup a level 1 spell-slot. Frankly spellcasting is a lazy man's psionics. Psionics requires stradegy and caculation. Are you prepared to giveup powerpoints for this manifestation of power? Spellcasting is just selecting a spell and throwing it at someone. You would think it would be the other way around seeing as flavor wise spellcasting is suppose to be taught/trained while psionics is a natural talent. If psionics are more powerful then spellcasters, it's because whoever is playing a spellcaster is playing so retardedly. If I were you, I would challenge the GM on this. Instead of forbidding psionics, make it a point that every player select a psionic based or magic based class. Then from there form teams, team magic and team psionic. Have them adventure and see who plows through your GM's plans and monsters first and more effectively. The only casters that are a bit weaker then psionics are the paladin (not a full caster and he was made poorly) the ranger (see paladin) the bard (see paladin, but not quite as bad) the spellthief (a little tweaking might help) the hexblade (see spellthief) the warmage (how is he any differant then a battle-sorcerer?) and the sorcerer
BadCatMan 12-20-07, 09:12 PM	Identify and Psionic Identify - the spell requires a 100 gp pearl (and the wine, though the owl feather can be ignored), the power is free. I've seen a few campaigns where magic item identification is held up and becomes a right chore coz folks have to go looking for pearls and preparing spells. (Heh. I once gave my PCs a bottle of wine pre-prepared as a half-dozen doses of an Identify potion. They spent a happy evening drinking and IDing. :))
Bacris 12-20-07, 09:29 PM	I guess we agree then! Your skill in Quoting Out of Context has increased (250)!
ToastedAmphibian 12-20-07, 10:29 PM	Your skill in Quoting Out of Context has increased (250)! Eeeeeexcellent.:plotting:
ToastedAmphibian 12-20-07, 10:44 PM	Your skill in Quoting Out of Context has increased (250)! Eeeeeexcellent.:plotting:
MindFlayerZoidberg 12-21-07, 01:50 AM	[QUOTE=JimProfit;14635077]Your GM must have a wisdom score of 4. There's no way psionics is more powerful then spellcasting, ever. Well he tends to get a little pissy when you kill off his higher lvl NPC's, and I even said to myself not to show off, but we got in a scrape and I almost killed his 9th lvl Ogre, (or something with a low will save) with Mind Thrust and he freaked out a little bit. It wasn't necessarily a Monster, just a mobster that was threatening my friend. This is his first time with Psionics and I have been running my campaign with it for 6 months. Ironically, he was the one who gave me complete psionics, and I loved the system, despite learning about it from complete psioinics.
CrimsonDeath 12-21-07, 03:14 AM	Identify and Psionic Identify - the spell requires a 100 gp pearl (and the wine, though the owl feather can be ignored), the power is free. I've seen a few campaigns where magic item identification is held up and becomes a right chore coz folks have to go looking for pearls and preparing spells. Note that Psionic Identify is a level 2 power (versus a level 1 arcane spell) and takes one day to manifest (versus one hour). I almost killed his 9th lvl Ogre, (or something with a low will save) with Mind Thrust and he freaked out a little bit. *groan* If he thinks Mind Thrust is overpowered, there may not be much hope...
AntiDjinn 12-21-07, 04:00 AM	Suggestion is a better deal for a telepath being 1 level lower than its arcane equivalent. The ability to implant mesmeric suggestions so fits the archetype of the telepath, that it simply makes sense that they should come by this ability before an equivalent level wizard or sorcerer would. For non-telepath psions it is not such a great deal since it costs a feat, and they have to be of sufficient level to manifest 3rd level powers to EK a 2nd level one. If a PC wanted to research it as a general list power, then I would make it 3rd level. The augmentation on Suggestion also allows a telepath to begin affecting multiple targets at fairly low levels, but this is eclipsed by the spell Mass Suggestion. When an 11th level wizard casts this spell he can affect up to 11 targets. When an 11th level telepath spends 11 points on Suggestion, he can affect up to 5 targets. The telepath is quicker to learn how to influence other minds, but can't match the mage's ability to convince entire crowds. The psionic version of Contingency has some noteworthy differences. A mage may only have one casting of the arcane version up at a time. Any attempt to cast a second contingency dispels the first. The psionic version may be manifest multiple times; the limiting mechanic is that only one companion power may be active at a time, meeting the condition to activate a second dispels the first. So if you activate your Contingency: Fly, then fly into the condition that activates your Contingency: Adapt Body, you fall. Still, the ability to have more than one Contingency latent at a time is a minor advantage; you just have to be careful how you word your trigger conditions. The wizard's advantage as far as Contingency is that the arcane version does not have an XP cost (psions pay the XP whether or not the Contingency winds up going off). Also, wizards have a huge list of spells to choose from, can make contingent a spell that they would then not bother to memorize for the next few days, and can even leave Contingency on the shelf and take a more useful spell in its place after setting it up. A psion can only make contingent a power he knows (or has access to), he chooses his powers from a relatively short list, and Contingency, itself, takes up a power known slot. The psion is stuck with both Contingency and whatever companion powers he sets up, still taking up slots in his head unless he cares to reform them away (which costs him more XP). If you jump a wizard who has a Contingency spell it could be any of hundreds of published spells. If you are going after a psion whom you know to have the Contingency power, you can probably rattle off a short list of power effects you expect to have triggered. btw: The big winner as far as psionic Contingency appears to be Psychic Reformation. This has come up in a couple of threads. You have to pay the XP cost for both powers, you are out this XP if your trigger condition never happens, but you can custom reformat a level or three to be exactly what you need to be for the situation at hand.
hovnarr 12-21-07, 05:03 AM	That's the powerful way to read it. It's probably more balanced if the augment just raises the cap on your dispel check rather than providing a flat bonus. Agreed it should be read that way. Even so though, psionic dispelling has some great advantages due to circumstance: *No components: Don't you just hate it when the one who's supposed to be able to dispel stuff like hold person is the one being held? With psionics, that's not a problem. *Spontaneous: Dispelling is dependant on chance. When you want it, you typically want several shots at it. You can just continue spending PP and rounds until you succeed. *One effect rather than 2: A sorceror might hesitate to learn Dispel Magic, because it becomes obsolete eventually and he'll have to use his 3rd level swap on it (better used on fireball/lightning bolt). Dispel Psionics stays useful throughout the career thanks to augmentation. Oh! Clairvoyant sense! QFT
Lycanthromancer 12-21-07, 01:03 PM	*Psionic contingency* Oooh. I'd never really noticed that. And here I've been thinking that you could only have one psionic contingency active at a time. I likes.
Urithair 12-21-07, 01:40 PM	Hey now, core sorcerer may be weaker than psionics, but non-core is at least par!
Lycanthromancer 12-21-07, 01:45 PM	The sorcerer is weaker than the psion, but his spells are much, much, much more broken than the psion's powers (especially when used with planning, foresight, and in conjunction with other spells). Strange admixture, no? [edit] I've already made clear on numerous occasions why I see it this way. I can elaborate if I must, but it's becoming a dead, much-flayed horse at this point.
MindFlayerZoidberg 12-21-07, 04:36 PM	The sorcerer is weaker than the psion, but his spells are much, much, much more broken than the psion's powers (especially when used with planning, foresight, and in conjunction with other spells). Strange admixture, no? [edit] I've already made clear on numerous occasions why I see it this way. I can elaborate if I must, but it's becoming a dead, much-flayed horse at this point. I have read some of your points on that which I always like to bring up to my DM, because for some reason everyone of the players in my groups is always melee oriented. It is not so much that people don't play casters, but no one plays casters well. So using 2-3 spells in conjunction with feats that maximize efficiency in dispatching certain monsters is met with confusion and suspicion since I didn't hack it to death with a sword.