Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Sysane 02-27-07, 10:33 AM	Yes, I know this will no doubt get me flamed. I like using with psionic points system but was curious if anyone had attempted a slot based conversion of psionics? I understand and agree that a point based system is superior to the slot based mechanics. However, I am interested to see if anyone had tried this approach and how they implemented in their game.
Tempest Stormwind 02-27-07, 11:08 AM	No one's posted such a system here to my knowledge (and I've been hanging out on the psi forums since 2004). The psionic system, as you've noted, is simply superior to the vancian system; doing the work on a slot-based system would be akin to doing a lot of work to remove scaling from every character class in the game -- a lot of work for an ultimately inferior product that next to no one would want.
Seerow 02-27-07, 11:10 AM	Well, it could be fun to do it and present it to the people who seem to think Psions are unbalanced relative to vancian casting. Possibly even showing how they GAIN power from such a system.
Sysane 02-27-07, 11:25 AM	I think would pretty interesting to say the least to see psionics in a vancian format. It would be pretty straight forward in converting the powers. The biggest issue would be converting metapsionic feats in such a way that they wouldn't mirror the sorcerer and their mechanics for dealing with metamagic feats.
Thomar_of_Uointer 02-27-07, 01:44 PM	There's an inherent problem with this. Most powers are designed to scale better than spells, as adding two power points essentially increases the power's level by 1. I think there's no point, we've got something better than spell slots already and we're sticking to it.
Sysane 02-27-07, 01:52 PM	I was just curious about it for curiosities sake. I'm not proposing that it should be replaced with such a mechanic.
Thomar_of_Uointer 02-27-07, 02:02 PM	I was just curious about it for curiosities sake. I'm not proposing that it should be replaced with such a mechanic. No, that's fine. You now know all the reasons that it's a bad idea. :D
Sysane 02-27-07, 02:12 PM	I don't find it bad idea as much as I would feel that it would be a great learning experience in reverse engineering psionics.
DM_V2 02-27-07, 05:57 PM	Warning: May contain shameless promotion of unearthed arcana A better idea is changing the slot based system into a point system.:eek: :love: Oh wait its already been done for us in unearthed arcana. I'm of talking about the amazing spell point system. I converted to it a year ago and I have never looked back.
Tempest Stormwind 02-27-07, 08:20 PM	Warning: May contain shameless promotion of unearthed arcana A better idea is changing the slot based system into a point system.:eek: :love: Oh wait its already been done for us in unearthed arcana. I'm of talking about the amazing spell point system. I converted to it a year ago and I have never looked back. Did you also change the SPELLS? It doesn't matter if you change the system; without also changing the spells, you'll create broken things (i.e. spells that don't do damage still autoscale, so you literally can cast over a dozen timestops and gates per day). It's like changing from an old howitzer to a modern bazooka; if you try to load the latter with the shells the former fired, it'll probably blow up in your face.
Deekin 02-27-07, 11:44 PM	http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w247/kolboldbard/bassthong2.jpg
Sysane 02-28-07, 09:36 AM	<<sniff>> I love the smell of open mindedness. ;)
Naderion 02-28-07, 10:19 AM	Just yesterday I tried to make a spell-pint wizard and you can imagine my surprise, when the result was exactly the same class as the psion. All they did was to take the wizard, re-calculate the spell-slots into spell-points and that's all. So just use the wizards spell-slots for the psion and you should be fine. :)
Tempest Stormwind 02-28-07, 10:29 AM	Just yesterday I tried to make a spell-pint wizard and you can imagine my surprise, when the result was exactly the same class as the psion. All they did was to take the wizard, re-calculate the spell-slots into spell-points and that's all. So just use the wizards spell-slots for the psion and you should be fine. :) No, you won't. Remember, changing the class will NOT change the spells. And the spells make the class. You'll have to implement a manner of scaling on every power to remove the augmentation system, and that will require you to split several powers into mulitple version thereof, and so on and so forth.
Sysane 02-28-07, 10:32 AM	I feel it would be more involved than that though. As someone had pointed out earlier, powers augment to be more powerful than spells. To auto scale powers to include some of the augmentation options based on manifester level like casters would cause unbalance between the two.
aotrscommander 02-28-07, 10:34 AM	The problem with converting psionics to Vancian is the same as converting converting spell slots to spell points; either way, you have to do a lot of work scaling or unscaling the powers or spells. Personally, I was distinctly less than impressed with the UA spell point system, seeing as it would have required me to go through and annotate every single spell I use - and I that's a heck of a lot of spells. Granted, there are not nearly as many powers as spells, but it would be an arduous job. You'd be more-or-less rewriting all the psionics powers. An awful lot of them rely on augments that add additional effects, rather than flat scaling effcts (which would be comparitively easy to alter) (Psionic Dominate, for example) that with magic have different spells at different levels. So you'd probably end up with more powers. So in the end, it's down to how much work you are prepared to do, the same as with changing the magic system. If you're prepared to practically re-write the spells/powers, as you have to do with UA's spell points or if you create an entirely new set of scaling spells as I have seen some people do and you would have to do to convert psi to magic, then all the power to you. The other option, one which I have used myself, is to change the front end a bit while leaving the mechanics themselves alone. I have made enough new spells and revisions to the magic system that I really didn't want to have change the entire casting mechanic (even if the psionic chassis is argueably better). What I have done to alter Vancian casting to a mana system was play around with the front end so I don't actually have to change any of the spells at all; i.e I converted spell slots into magic on a one-to-one basis and then played with how much mana you get per day to counter the vastly increased flexibility. You might be able to manage a partial conversion along the same lines in reverse by splitting power points into 'slots' (from levels 1 to 9 or 10) and saying you can cast a power as that level of slot (so you might have say 4 level 5 'slots' which would allow you to manifest four powers of up to 9PP. You could then only manifest powers of the costs of 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17 and argueably 19. The hard part would be breaking the PP back down from the PP reserve. While converting spell slots to Mana is easy, since you can see the progression, it's harder the other way around. I'm sure there is a logical progression for power points too, but because we the end-users only see the final total, we don't know what the 'formulae' used to calculate it is. (I say we; folks like Tempest may have already worked it out from working on UT). Just yesterday I tried to make a spell-pint wizard and you can imagine my surprise, when the result was exactly the same class as the psion. All they did was to take the wizard, re-calculate the spell-slots into spell-points and that's all. So just use the wizards spell-slots for the psion and you should be fine. :) I tried that just now and it was similar, but not identical (granted I only tried the top levels). Still, using wizard or druid spell slots for a starting estimate would be the way to go if you were really bothered. Then you don't actually have to change the powers, you just become a 'caster' more versatile than a spontaneous Vancian caster, but less versatile than a normal psi character (in the same way my magic system make casters more versatile than old spontaneous casters, but less so than psionic characters.
Sysane 02-28-07, 10:58 AM	What if there were a set number of times per day that a manifester could use an augment option. Think along the lines of a cleric and divine metamagic and burning turning attempts to increase the effects of spells above an beyond what they are normally capable of doing.
aotrscommander 02-28-07, 11:20 AM	What if there were a set number of times per day that a manifester could use an augment option. Think along the lines of a cleric and divine metamagic and burning turning attempts to increase the effects of spells above an beyond what they are normally capable of doing. Yes, but then you're adding another level of complexity. You've got to find someway to decide or calculate - pretty much from a blind guess - how often you let them do that. Because if you get it wrong, the effectivenes of your psion goes down. For example, there aren't many Energy Powers of 6th or higher level, so you are restricting psionists to a limitation that was not in the intended design. Now you can work round that, but you'd need to add more powers. Eventually, you have to draw the line between whether you want to add and/or modify loads of powers and completely change the chassis of the way psionics works and doing a 'compromise' that bends the chassis in the direction you are going by changing the front end (i.e the quanity of spells/powers you get) without actually having to change the actual mechanics of the spells/powers. This middle ground is always going to be something of a compromise, but that's what you get for trying to merge two essentially different mechanics created to different purposes.
Sysane 02-28-07, 11:35 AM	Yes, but then you're adding another level of complexity. You've got to find someway to decide or calculate - pretty much from a blind guess - how often you let them do that. Because if you get it wrong, the effectivenes of your psion goes down. For example, there aren't many Energy Powers of 6th or higher level, so you are restricting psionists to a limitation that was not in the intended design. Now you can work round that, but you'd need to add more powers. Eventually, you have to draw the line between whether you want to add and/or modify loads of powers and completely change the chassis of the way psionics works and doing a 'compromise' that bends the chassis in the direction you are going by changing the front end (i.e the quanity of spells/powers you get) without actually having to change the actual mechanics of the spells/powers. This middle ground is always going to be something of a compromise, but that's what you get for trying to merge two essentially different mechanics created to different purposes. It really wouldn't be that big of an undertaking though. If you left most of the powers as they are and just incorporated that damaging powers auto scale with level with damage caps like a caster and left the other non-damaging augmentations you should be fine. The toughest part, as you pointed out, would be deciding on the number of times a day a manifester could use augment options in any given period.
Seerow 02-28-07, 12:23 PM	And TS beats me to all my arguments. Ah well, not complaining. Less work for me.
DM_V2 02-28-07, 06:21 PM	Tempest, Wizards are already much more powerful than Psions the spell points system dosn't really make them much more "broken" then they are already :) . it just makes them more fun to play. As for the lack of augmenting rules for non damage spells, that's balanced by the fact that psions have 1.5 to 2 times more power points than wizards, have spell points. I have play tested this system with a campain with a psion and wizard PC, Both equally skilled players, and the wizard wasn't any more powerful than he normally was. But hey I'm not going to tell you how to play your game,don't tell me how to play mine. I simply think spellpoints are more fun.