Sangehirn or Psychic Chirurgeon? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Sangehirn or Psychic Chirurgeon? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Mercurius
09-12-07, 01:33 PM I'm considering trying to create a "healer" out of a psionicist (either Egoist or PsyWar... still debating) and I was wondering which of the two PrCs is more viable/worth it: Sangehirn from Mind's Eye or Psychic Chirugeon from HyperConscious?

From cursory glances, Psychic Chirugeon seems like a better choice, but I'm not entirely sure.

I'm somewhat tempted to go with PsyWar, but I'm thinking the build would be much clunkier and probably require several investitures of Psionic Talent feats to realy be viable. Thoughts on this as well?
jbsaff
09-12-07, 03:50 PM Another option that you may want to consider is the Society Mind (http://dreamscarredpress.com/main/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=7&category_id=1&manufacturer_id=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=29). It's a base class instead of a PrC, which may be more appealing. At the first level, it allows you to move healing among the members of your group, making a dorje of Body Adjustment useful for party healing.

If that doesn't tickle your fancy (or your DM disapproves), I've read the Sangehirn and it seems capable. However, will you be able to cast the higher-level powers if you use PsyWar? I suppose that 7-9th powers aren't a big deal for you if you just want to be a secondary healer.

I don't have HC, so no comment on the other option.
Bacris
09-12-07, 04:30 PM Definitely go egoist over psywar for a healer - or society mind (Untapped Potential) or ardent (Complete Psionic) - all of those are "pure" manifesters with 9th level powers and the psion's progression of power points.

As a healer, you need as many power points as you can.

I'll have to wait to comment on the PrCs until I get home to take a look at Psychic Chirurgeon (hooray for DRM on PDFs, re-installed my laptop and now I can't view my legitimately purchased PDF of it... glad I printed it out).
Sagetim
09-12-07, 04:32 PM I'm considering trying to create a "healer" out of a psionicist (either Egoist or PsyWar... still debating) and I was wondering which of the two PrCs is more viable/worth it: Sangehirn from Mind's Eye or Psychic Chirugeon from HyperConscious?

From cursory glances, Psychic Chirugeon seems like a better choice, but I'm not entirely sure.

I'm somewhat tempted to go with PsyWar, but I'm thinking the build would be much clunkier and probably require several investitures of Psionic Talent feats to realy be viable. Thoughts on this as well?

actually, I'd suggest using the Ardent from complete psionics. Sagehirn is a favorite of mine (it's where the sage in my name is derived from) but truth be told, the Ardent can do a better job. Healing touch is a level 1 power that heals 2 hp, can be augmented on a one point per two healing basis. sure, it's not that great, but it's good enough to keep someone from bleeding out. That, and an Ardent can hold their own in a melee fight. Not as good as a fighter, but about as good as a cleric. They can also get energy powers...well, they can get alot of various things.

My point is this: Ardent makes a good healer. They can also make a decent 'battle mage'.

Edit: To Bacris about the pdf's. If you can, get a shortcut to the adobe pdf viewer on your desktop, then drag and drop the pdf you want to view onto the shortcut. Worked for me when my adobe got frazzled a while ago.

Edit again: Now that I've been able to look over the 3.5 sagehirn, I'd suggest going Ardent/Sagehirn. It's a very nice prc, especially if you like the fact that they can take hits and keep on going (dr, fast healing).
Mercurius
09-12-07, 05:07 PM Ardent would work if I owned Complete Psi, but I don't want to touch it with a 10' pole... except maybe for the Lurk and Ardent, and that'd take me getting it significantly cheaper than retail to justify.

But thanks for the advice. I figured Egoist would probably be the better path, but I'm still sorta tempted by the psywar. Which is silly, because this guy's going to be Gestalted anyway... but his other half has to be some sort of "social" or at least "high bluff" character to really work for the game...
Sagetim
09-12-07, 05:15 PM Ardent would work if I owned Complete Psi, but I don't want to touch it with a 10' pole... except maybe for the Lurk and Ardent, and that'd take me getting it significantly cheaper than retail to justify.

But thanks for the advice. I figured Egoist would probably be the better path, but I'm still sorta tempted by the psywar. Which is silly, because this guy's going to be Gestalted anyway... but his other half has to be some sort of "social" or at least "high bluff" character to really work for the game...

you could go egotist/bard. then you would get low level cure spells and some healing.
Bacris
09-12-07, 05:17 PM Bard would get many of the same things as a psywar, and also be a "face" character :P Except d6 instead of d8, but two good saves and lots of skill points.

Or if you want to go psionic, the thoughtsinger (written by Keith Baker, released as a free PDF) serves the same role.
Sagetim
09-12-07, 07:06 PM bard = the guy with all the interaction skills. Thats why I suggested it...the minor healing is just that, minor. Not too great, but a good way to bolster the psionic healer. However...if you want to go for the 'gold of healing' get a cleric/psion (or whatever base your using). Then you get cure spells and healing psionics....since it's gestalt.
Bacris
09-12-07, 07:27 PM Check the time stamps, dude, you suggested right as I was typing mine up - I wasn't disagreeing with it :P
Sagetim
09-12-07, 08:34 PM Check the time stamps, dude, you suggested right as I was typing mine up - I wasn't disagreeing with it :P

oh, sorry, never meant to imply that you were. Anywho...Ghestalt characters are bound to be broken. And if your going to get ghestalt, why not go crazy ghestalt. Be an Ardent/cleric. then you can have your highest in wis, second highest in charisma, and still be the talky guy. Just have to get the right domain and I'm pretty sure you could use some of the interaction skills as class skills (trickery gives bluff, disguse and something I think...)
InkBlot
09-12-07, 08:37 PM I built a 5th level ardent as a healer once. He was good at healing - better than an egoist - but he was just a healer. Ardents have very few powers known, just 6 at level five, but to be a complete healer you need 5 different powers: touch of health, vigor, empathic transfer, share pain, and body purification. That doesn't leave any room to be good at anything but healing.

Ardents also don't get bonus feats, which makes the feat prerequisites for sangehirn that much harder to meet by 6th level. Unless you're playing a human, you only have one feat left. That feat should be Psicrystal Affinity. Not much room for feat customization.

The healing ardent's powers-known drought doesn't last long after 5th level. Thanks to augmentation, all the mandatory psionic healing powers are low level. That is a 1/4 of the game, but if you start at a higher level you won't even notice it.

You also have the mantle granted abilities to help out. I couldn't put together a combination of mantle abilities that appealed to me, but maybe you could.

In the end, I ditched the ardent build and made an egoist healer instead. Then I ditched the egoist and played a binder (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060303a&page=2). There's a vestige that grants cure light wounds once every 5 rounds, a constant aura of delay poison/disease, immunity to poison and disease, fast healing, and a +4 on heal checks. Good stuff.
Sagetim
09-12-07, 08:53 PM I built a 5th level ardent as a healer once. He was good at healing - better than an egoist - but he was just a healer. Ardents have very few powers known, just 6 at level five, but to be a complete healer you need 5 different powers: touch of health, vigor, empathic transfer, share pain, and body purification. That doesn't leave any room to be good at anything but healing.

Ardents also don't get bonus feats, which makes the feat prerequisites for sangehirn that much harder to meet by 6th level. Unless you're playing a human, you only have one feat left. That feat should be Psicrystal Affinity. Not much room for feat customization.

The healing ardent's powers-known drought doesn't last long after 5th level. Thanks to augmentation, all the mandatory psionic healing powers are low level. That is a 1/4 of the game, but if you start at a higher level you won't even notice it.

You also have the mantle granted abilities to help out. I couldn't put together a combination of mantle abilities that appealed to me, but maybe you could.

In the end, I ditched the ardent build and made an egoist healer instead. Then I ditched the egoist and played a binder (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060303a&page=2). There's a vestige that grants cure light wounds once every 5 rounds, a constant aura of delay poison/disease, immunity to poison and disease, fast healing, and a +4 on heal checks. Good stuff.

aye, but he wanted a psi healer. Ardent would be good as an offense if you took the energy mantle or creation mantle. Creation would give astral construct (making you now able to summon a pet to help fight) and energy would give you those direct damagers.
Destruction mantle gives dissipating touch though.
and hell, if you have dissipating touch, you don't need much else in the way of attacks (especially when you can wear heavy armor and use a shield.
Tempest Stormwind
09-12-07, 09:53 PM ...his other half has to be some sort of "social" or at least "high bluff" character to really work for the game...

Society mind can heal, is a full manifester, works *obscenely* well with Sangehirn, and has a heavy social side, including Bluff as a class skill and class features that boost Bluff (amidst other things).
jbsaff
09-12-07, 10:12 PM Wow... I hadn't even considered a Society Mind/Sangehirn. That would be awesome. And with the gestalt rules, you could use the entire other side for combat awesome.

BTW Tempest, I've read your sig a couple of times looking for new or interesting subjects, and I just realized what the bit at the end of your Board Quotes section is. Hooray for obscure and/or esoteric CS stuff.
Tempest Stormwind
09-12-07, 10:21 PM Wow... I hadn't even considered a Society Mind/Sangehirn. That would be awesome. And with the gestalt rules, you could use the entire other side for combat awesome.

Especially because the official ruling on how society mind manifesting interacts with the sangehirn list is "Consider sangehirn powers society mind powers for rotating powers known", you get a lot of flexibility. Oh, and you're right about Combat Awesome: Sangehirn's high DR and fast healing turn you into a melee beast (and if you aren't taking damage, the fast healing can heal your network members!).

BTW Tempest, I've read your sig a couple of times looking for new or interesting subjects, and I just realized what the bit at the end of your Board Quotes section is. Hooray for obscure and/or esoteric CS stuff.

You're the first! Hooray!

(Psly4mne has an odd implementation of Hello World in his sig. I figured I'd one-up it.)
Sagetim
09-12-07, 10:47 PM Especially because the official ruling on how society mind manifesting interacts with the sangehirn list is "Consider sangehirn powers society mind powers for rotating powers known", you get a lot of flexibility. Oh, and you're right about Combat Awesome: Sangehirn's high DR and fast healing turn you into a melee beast (and if you aren't taking damage, the fast healing can heal your network members!).

You're the first! Hooray!

(Psly4mne has an odd implementation of Hello World in his sig. I figured I'd one-up it.)
hmm, forgot about the whole 'healing and be shared through link' thing...good god....a society mind could keep a party of fighter types going full day once they hit level 11 (fast healing 1 from sagehirn). Just have down times of about ten min or so.
Mercurius
09-12-07, 11:13 PM ?

I know I'm not the designer of the class or anything, but I was just reading it in my copy of UT, and it says that Fast Healing doesn't transmit over the network.

Healing from ongoing healing effects, such as the fast healing special quality or True Metabolism, cannot be transferred

Was there some sort of rules change since it wound up in actual print?
Bacris
09-12-07, 11:27 PM Nope, that's the same as the version I have (and I have the master copy, so I'd like to think I have the right info :)). Checking the original board incarnation, however, it did allow to share ongoing effects.

Tempest / RT / DH, just let me know which one is right, and I'll update as appropriate / issue errata.
Sagetim
09-12-07, 11:31 PM well, this is what I'm going off of...

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=506284
jbsaff
09-12-07, 11:50 PM Bacris, it looks like a feat was created in UTP to allow a Society Mind that gets fast healing to use it across the network. Lend Health.

Sagetim, the feat and the reasoning for it are listed on that thread in Tempest's post on expanded Society Mind material.

I think using a feat gives it a good balance. I can certainly understand why some would feel that granting it outright could cause issues.
Bacris
09-12-07, 11:59 PM Ah, yup, you're absolutely right - the society mind was something I had very little to do with on Untapped Potential - the other 3 guys had already practically finished it before we even started, so I focused on the other stuff :)

And for the curious, here's Lend Health:

LEND HEALTH [PSIONIC]
You may passively absorb the injuries of members of your worldthought network and instantly heal them with your fast healing.
Prerequisites: Cooperative healing, fast healing special quality, Heal 5 ranks, ability to manifest empathic transfer.
Benefit: Each round, as a free action, you may choose to freely distribute any amount of your fast healing to members of your worldthought network, instead of using that healing yourself, exactly as if it were an instantaneous healing effect. Fast healing is considered natural healing for the purposes of which creatures can be healed by it. This otherwise works as the cooperative healing class feature.
Normal: Fast healing and continuous healing effects do not transfer through cooperative healing.
Sagetim
09-13-07, 12:47 AM I noticed the part about it in the expanded section, but figured that you would find it yourself if you wanted to bring it up. Yes, I'm lazy. I'd be the society mind with 5 sagehirn levels, 15 society mind levels, and sitting in a cave somewhere...off in the middle of nowhere...sending out fast healing to anyone I felt like sending it to. mmmm, lazy.
jbsaff
09-13-07, 01:21 AM I'd be the society mind with 5 sagehirn levels, 15 society mind levels, and sitting in a cave somewhere...off in the middle of nowhere...sending out fast healing to anyone I felt like sending it to. mmmm, lazy.

Awesome... if you could just get that one more level of Society Mind, you could go to town and really relax.
Tempest Stormwind
09-13-07, 03:36 AM Personally, I (and the others who worked on it) don't think free sharing of fast healing is all that bad. However, when we did our initial out of house playtesting, that was what was complained about the most. However, this was also done on the CO boards, who aren't all knee-jerk against psionics, and a significant minority said it'd be fine as free.

So, the original version has free sharing on by default and presents a variant no-sharing rule using Lend Health as a feat. When it went to UTP, we chose the more conservative one as a default because we wanted to avoid such complaints (particularly because the OGL market isn't as tolerant as the CO boards in most cases relating to power level, doubly so in the case of psionic material at the time). However, if you want to houserule free sharing, know that the developers often do the same.

Personally, I'd just include a developer commentary sidebar, or a series of editor's notes. This could appear in a separate file, included in the zip; it's not needed as part of the text itself.

For the record, the society mind was made to be able to fill the distant benefactor (http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2005-10-16) role. (An example I've seen used is the tech guy from heist films, sitting at the base with the computer but nonetheless making the whole thing possible.) He can sit off and pass off buffs and heals. However, he's not likely to gain any experience adventuring doing that.

(Similarly, by the way, you can meet up with high-level psion NPCs and work for them; in exchange they may let you add them to your network. This gives you a ready source of information as well as a dramatically wider array of powers -- recall that you can manifest another psionic character's powers known, and that the network lets you do it without touching the other character. You'll likely need the Harmonic Resonance feat to really take advantage of this trick, and it's slow as molasses (three rounds for one power), but it's still exceptionally useful. Call it an RP-moderated Psipool.)
Sagetim
09-13-07, 01:06 PM Personally, I (and the others who worked on it) don't think free sharing of fast healing is all that bad. However, when we did our initial out of house playtesting, that was what was complained about the most. However, this was also done on the CO boards, who aren't all knee-jerk against psionics, and a significant minority said it'd be fine as free.

So, the original version has free sharing on by default and presents a variant no-sharing rule using Lend Health as a feat. When it went to UTP, we chose the more conservative one as a default because we wanted to avoid such complaints (particularly because the OGL market isn't as tolerant as the CO boards in most cases relating to power level, doubly so in the case of psionic material at the time). However, if you want to houserule free sharing, know that the developers often do the same.

Personally, I'd just include a developer commentary sidebar, or a series of editor's notes. This could appear in a separate file, included in the zip; it's not needed as part of the text itself.

For the record, the society mind was made to be able to fill the distant benefactor (http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2005-10-16) role. (An example I've seen used is the tech guy from heist films, sitting at the base with the computer but nonetheless making the whole thing possible.) He can sit off and pass off buffs and heals. However, he's not likely to gain any experience adventuring doing that.

(Similarly, by the way, you can meet up with high-level psion NPCs and work for them; in exchange they may let you add them to your network. This gives you a ready source of information as well as a dramatically wider array of powers -- recall that you can manifest another psionic character's powers known, and that the network lets you do it without touching the other character. You'll likely need the Harmonic Resonance feat to really take advantage of this trick, and it's slow as molasses (three rounds for one power), but it's still exceptionally useful. Call it an RP-moderated Psipool.)

Ahem:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Sagetim/Societymindposter.jpg
And two earlier ones using the same:

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Sagetim/hypercogposter.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Sagetim/dominateposter.jpg

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Mercurius 09-12-07, 01:33 PM	I'm considering trying to create a "healer" out of a psionicist (either Egoist or PsyWar... still debating) and I was wondering which of the two PrCs is more viable/worth it: Sangehirn from Mind's Eye or Psychic Chirugeon from HyperConscious? From cursory glances, Psychic Chirugeon seems like a better choice, but I'm not entirely sure. I'm somewhat tempted to go with PsyWar, but I'm thinking the build would be much clunkier and probably require several investitures of Psionic Talent feats to realy be viable. Thoughts on this as well?
jbsaff 09-12-07, 03:50 PM	Another option that you may want to consider is the Society Mind (http://dreamscarredpress.com/main/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=7&category_id=1&manufacturer_id=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=29). It's a base class instead of a PrC, which may be more appealing. At the first level, it allows you to move healing among the members of your group, making a dorje of Body Adjustment useful for party healing. If that doesn't tickle your fancy (or your DM disapproves), I've read the Sangehirn and it seems capable. However, will you be able to cast the higher-level powers if you use PsyWar? I suppose that 7-9th powers aren't a big deal for you if you just want to be a secondary healer. I don't have HC, so no comment on the other option.
Bacris 09-12-07, 04:30 PM	Definitely go egoist over psywar for a healer - or society mind (Untapped Potential) or ardent (Complete Psionic) - all of those are "pure" manifesters with 9th level powers and the psion's progression of power points. As a healer, you need as many power points as you can. I'll have to wait to comment on the PrCs until I get home to take a look at Psychic Chirurgeon (hooray for DRM on PDFs, re-installed my laptop and now I can't view my legitimately purchased PDF of it... glad I printed it out).
Sagetim 09-12-07, 04:32 PM	I'm considering trying to create a "healer" out of a psionicist (either Egoist or PsyWar... still debating) and I was wondering which of the two PrCs is more viable/worth it: Sangehirn from Mind's Eye or Psychic Chirugeon from HyperConscious? From cursory glances, Psychic Chirugeon seems like a better choice, but I'm not entirely sure. I'm somewhat tempted to go with PsyWar, but I'm thinking the build would be much clunkier and probably require several investitures of Psionic Talent feats to realy be viable. Thoughts on this as well? actually, I'd suggest using the Ardent from complete psionics. Sagehirn is a favorite of mine (it's where the sage in my name is derived from) but truth be told, the Ardent can do a better job. Healing touch is a level 1 power that heals 2 hp, can be augmented on a one point per two healing basis. sure, it's not that great, but it's good enough to keep someone from bleeding out. That, and an Ardent can hold their own in a melee fight. Not as good as a fighter, but about as good as a cleric. They can also get energy powers...well, they can get alot of various things. My point is this: Ardent makes a good healer. They can also make a decent 'battle mage'. Edit: To Bacris about the pdf's. If you can, get a shortcut to the adobe pdf viewer on your desktop, then drag and drop the pdf you want to view onto the shortcut. Worked for me when my adobe got frazzled a while ago. Edit again: Now that I've been able to look over the 3.5 sagehirn, I'd suggest going Ardent/Sagehirn. It's a very nice prc, especially if you like the fact that they can take hits and keep on going (dr, fast healing).
Mercurius 09-12-07, 05:07 PM	Ardent would work if I owned Complete Psi, but I don't want to touch it with a 10' pole... except maybe for the Lurk and Ardent, and that'd take me getting it significantly cheaper than retail to justify. But thanks for the advice. I figured Egoist would probably be the better path, but I'm still sorta tempted by the psywar. Which is silly, because this guy's going to be Gestalted anyway... but his other half has to be some sort of "social" or at least "high bluff" character to really work for the game...
Sagetim 09-12-07, 05:15 PM	Ardent would work if I owned Complete Psi, but I don't want to touch it with a 10' pole... except maybe for the Lurk and Ardent, and that'd take me getting it significantly cheaper than retail to justify. But thanks for the advice. I figured Egoist would probably be the better path, but I'm still sorta tempted by the psywar. Which is silly, because this guy's going to be Gestalted anyway... but his other half has to be some sort of "social" or at least "high bluff" character to really work for the game... you could go egotist/bard. then you would get low level cure spells and some healing.
Bacris 09-12-07, 05:17 PM	Bard would get many of the same things as a psywar, and also be a "face" character :P Except d6 instead of d8, but two good saves and lots of skill points. Or if you want to go psionic, the thoughtsinger (written by Keith Baker, released as a free PDF) serves the same role.
Sagetim 09-12-07, 07:06 PM	bard = the guy with all the interaction skills. Thats why I suggested it...the minor healing is just that, minor. Not too great, but a good way to bolster the psionic healer. However...if you want to go for the 'gold of healing' get a cleric/psion (or whatever base your using). Then you get cure spells and healing psionics....since it's gestalt.
Bacris 09-12-07, 07:27 PM	Check the time stamps, dude, you suggested right as I was typing mine up - I wasn't disagreeing with it :P
Sagetim 09-12-07, 08:34 PM	Check the time stamps, dude, you suggested right as I was typing mine up - I wasn't disagreeing with it :P oh, sorry, never meant to imply that you were. Anywho...Ghestalt characters are bound to be broken. And if your going to get ghestalt, why not go crazy ghestalt. Be an Ardent/cleric. then you can have your highest in wis, second highest in charisma, and still be the talky guy. Just have to get the right domain and I'm pretty sure you could use some of the interaction skills as class skills (trickery gives bluff, disguse and something I think...)
InkBlot 09-12-07, 08:37 PM	I built a 5th level ardent as a healer once. He was good at healing - better than an egoist - but he was just a healer. Ardents have very few powers known, just 6 at level five, but to be a complete healer you need 5 different powers: touch of health, vigor, empathic transfer, share pain, and body purification. That doesn't leave any room to be good at anything but healing. Ardents also don't get bonus feats, which makes the feat prerequisites for sangehirn that much harder to meet by 6th level. Unless you're playing a human, you only have one feat left. That feat should be Psicrystal Affinity. Not much room for feat customization. The healing ardent's powers-known drought doesn't last long after 5th level. Thanks to augmentation, all the mandatory psionic healing powers are low level. That is a 1/4 of the game, but if you start at a higher level you won't even notice it. You also have the mantle granted abilities to help out. I couldn't put together a combination of mantle abilities that appealed to me, but maybe you could. In the end, I ditched the ardent build and made an egoist healer instead. Then I ditched the egoist and played a binder (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060303a&page=2). There's a vestige that grants cure light wounds once every 5 rounds, a constant aura of delay poison/disease, immunity to poison and disease, fast healing, and a +4 on heal checks. Good stuff.
Sagetim 09-12-07, 08:53 PM	I built a 5th level ardent as a healer once. He was good at healing - better than an egoist - but he was just a healer. Ardents have very few powers known, just 6 at level five, but to be a complete healer you need 5 different powers: touch of health, vigor, empathic transfer, share pain, and body purification. That doesn't leave any room to be good at anything but healing. Ardents also don't get bonus feats, which makes the feat prerequisites for sangehirn that much harder to meet by 6th level. Unless you're playing a human, you only have one feat left. That feat should be Psicrystal Affinity. Not much room for feat customization. The healing ardent's powers-known drought doesn't last long after 5th level. Thanks to augmentation, all the mandatory psionic healing powers are low level. That is a 1/4 of the game, but if you start at a higher level you won't even notice it. You also have the mantle granted abilities to help out. I couldn't put together a combination of mantle abilities that appealed to me, but maybe you could. In the end, I ditched the ardent build and made an egoist healer instead. Then I ditched the egoist and played a binder (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060303a&page=2). There's a vestige that grants cure light wounds once every 5 rounds, a constant aura of delay poison/disease, immunity to poison and disease, fast healing, and a +4 on heal checks. Good stuff. aye, but he wanted a psi healer. Ardent would be good as an offense if you took the energy mantle or creation mantle. Creation would give astral construct (making you now able to summon a pet to help fight) and energy would give you those direct damagers. Destruction mantle gives dissipating touch though. and hell, if you have dissipating touch, you don't need much else in the way of attacks (especially when you can wear heavy armor and use a shield.
Tempest Stormwind 09-12-07, 09:53 PM	...his other half has to be some sort of "social" or at least "high bluff" character to really work for the game... Society mind can heal, is a full manifester, works obscenely well with Sangehirn, and has a heavy social side, including Bluff as a class skill and class features that boost Bluff (amidst other things).
jbsaff 09-12-07, 10:12 PM	Wow... I hadn't even considered a Society Mind/Sangehirn. That would be awesome. And with the gestalt rules, you could use the entire other side for combat awesome. BTW Tempest, I've read your sig a couple of times looking for new or interesting subjects, and I just realized what the bit at the end of your Board Quotes section is. Hooray for obscure and/or esoteric CS stuff.
Tempest Stormwind 09-12-07, 10:21 PM	Wow... I hadn't even considered a Society Mind/Sangehirn. That would be awesome. And with the gestalt rules, you could use the entire other side for combat awesome. Especially because the official ruling on how society mind manifesting interacts with the sangehirn list is "Consider sangehirn powers society mind powers for rotating powers known", you get a lot of flexibility. Oh, and you're right about Combat Awesome: Sangehirn's high DR and fast healing turn you into a melee beast (and if you aren't taking damage, the fast healing can heal your network members!). BTW Tempest, I've read your sig a couple of times looking for new or interesting subjects, and I just realized what the bit at the end of your Board Quotes section is. Hooray for obscure and/or esoteric CS stuff. You're the first! Hooray! (Psly4mne has an odd implementation of Hello World in his sig. I figured I'd one-up it.)
Sagetim 09-12-07, 10:47 PM	Especially because the official ruling on how society mind manifesting interacts with the sangehirn list is "Consider sangehirn powers society mind powers for rotating powers known", you get a lot of flexibility. Oh, and you're right about Combat Awesome: Sangehirn's high DR and fast healing turn you into a melee beast (and if you aren't taking damage, the fast healing can heal your network members!). You're the first! Hooray! (Psly4mne has an odd implementation of Hello World in his sig. I figured I'd one-up it.) hmm, forgot about the whole 'healing and be shared through link' thing...good god....a society mind could keep a party of fighter types going full day once they hit level 11 (fast healing 1 from sagehirn). Just have down times of about ten min or so.
Mercurius 09-12-07, 11:13 PM	? I know I'm not the designer of the class or anything, but I was just reading it in my copy of UT, and it says that Fast Healing doesn't transmit over the network. Healing from ongoing healing effects, such as the fast healing special quality or True Metabolism, cannot be transferred Was there some sort of rules change since it wound up in actual print?
Bacris 09-12-07, 11:27 PM	Nope, that's the same as the version I have (and I have the master copy, so I'd like to think I have the right info :)). Checking the original board incarnation, however, it did allow to share ongoing effects. Tempest / RT / DH, just let me know which one is right, and I'll update as appropriate / issue errata.
Sagetim 09-12-07, 11:31 PM	well, this is what I'm going off of... http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=506284
jbsaff 09-12-07, 11:50 PM	Bacris, it looks like a feat was created in UTP to allow a Society Mind that gets fast healing to use it across the network. Lend Health. Sagetim, the feat and the reasoning for it are listed on that thread in Tempest's post on expanded Society Mind material. I think using a feat gives it a good balance. I can certainly understand why some would feel that granting it outright could cause issues.
Bacris 09-12-07, 11:59 PM	Ah, yup, you're absolutely right - the society mind was something I had very little to do with on Untapped Potential - the other 3 guys had already practically finished it before we even started, so I focused on the other stuff :) And for the curious, here's Lend Health: LEND HEALTH [PSIONIC] You may passively absorb the injuries of members of your worldthought network and instantly heal them with your fast healing. Prerequisites: Cooperative healing, fast healing special quality, Heal 5 ranks, ability to manifest empathic transfer. Benefit: Each round, as a free action, you may choose to freely distribute any amount of your fast healing to members of your worldthought network, instead of using that healing yourself, exactly as if it were an instantaneous healing effect. Fast healing is considered natural healing for the purposes of which creatures can be healed by it. This otherwise works as the cooperative healing class feature. Normal: Fast healing and continuous healing effects do not transfer through cooperative healing.
Sagetim 09-13-07, 12:47 AM	I noticed the part about it in the expanded section, but figured that you would find it yourself if you wanted to bring it up. Yes, I'm lazy. I'd be the society mind with 5 sagehirn levels, 15 society mind levels, and sitting in a cave somewhere...off in the middle of nowhere...sending out fast healing to anyone I felt like sending it to. mmmm, lazy.
jbsaff 09-13-07, 01:21 AM	I'd be the society mind with 5 sagehirn levels, 15 society mind levels, and sitting in a cave somewhere...off in the middle of nowhere...sending out fast healing to anyone I felt like sending it to. mmmm, lazy. Awesome... if you could just get that one more level of Society Mind, you could go to town and really relax.
Tempest Stormwind 09-13-07, 03:36 AM	Personally, I (and the others who worked on it) don't think free sharing of fast healing is all that bad. However, when we did our initial out of house playtesting, that was what was complained about the most. However, this was also done on the CO boards, who aren't all knee-jerk against psionics, and a significant minority said it'd be fine as free. So, the original version has free sharing on by default and presents a variant no-sharing rule using Lend Health as a feat. When it went to UTP, we chose the more conservative one as a default because we wanted to avoid such complaints (particularly because the OGL market isn't as tolerant as the CO boards in most cases relating to power level, doubly so in the case of psionic material at the time). However, if you want to houserule free sharing, know that the developers often do the same. Personally, I'd just include a developer commentary sidebar, or a series of editor's notes. This could appear in a separate file, included in the zip; it's not needed as part of the text itself. For the record, the society mind was made to be able to fill the distant benefactor (http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2005-10-16) role. (An example I've seen used is the tech guy from heist films, sitting at the base with the computer but nonetheless making the whole thing possible.) He can sit off and pass off buffs and heals. However, he's not likely to gain any experience adventuring doing that. (Similarly, by the way, you can meet up with high-level psion NPCs and work for them; in exchange they may let you add them to your network. This gives you a ready source of information as well as a dramatically wider array of powers -- recall that you can manifest another psionic character's powers known, and that the network lets you do it without touching the other character. You'll likely need the Harmonic Resonance feat to really take advantage of this trick, and it's slow as molasses (three rounds for one power), but it's still exceptionally useful. Call it an RP-moderated Psipool.)
Sagetim 09-13-07, 01:06 PM	Personally, I (and the others who worked on it) don't think free sharing of fast healing is all that bad. However, when we did our initial out of house playtesting, that was what was complained about the most. However, this was also done on the CO boards, who aren't all knee-jerk against psionics, and a significant minority said it'd be fine as free. So, the original version has free sharing on by default and presents a variant no-sharing rule using Lend Health as a feat. When it went to UTP, we chose the more conservative one as a default because we wanted to avoid such complaints (particularly because the OGL market isn't as tolerant as the CO boards in most cases relating to power level, doubly so in the case of psionic material at the time). However, if you want to houserule free sharing, know that the developers often do the same. Personally, I'd just include a developer commentary sidebar, or a series of editor's notes. This could appear in a separate file, included in the zip; it's not needed as part of the text itself. For the record, the society mind was made to be able to fill the distant benefactor (http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2005-10-16) role. (An example I've seen used is the tech guy from heist films, sitting at the base with the computer but nonetheless making the whole thing possible.) He can sit off and pass off buffs and heals. However, he's not likely to gain any experience adventuring doing that. (Similarly, by the way, you can meet up with high-level psion NPCs and work for them; in exchange they may let you add them to your network. This gives you a ready source of information as well as a dramatically wider array of powers -- recall that you can manifest another psionic character's powers known, and that the network lets you do it without touching the other character. You'll likely need the Harmonic Resonance feat to really take advantage of this trick, and it's slow as molasses (three rounds for one power), but it's still exceptionally useful. Call it an RP-moderated Psipool.) Ahem: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Sagetim/Societymindposter.jpg And two earlier ones using the same: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Sagetim/hypercogposter.jpg http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Sagetim/dominateposter.jpg