Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 knightsfyre Apr 13, 2010 17:53:19	While most psions choose to focus on one manifestation of psionic power over the other (choosing either Telepathy or Telekinesis), some members of the class prefer a more harmonious or even approach, studying and learning disciplines from either aspect with equal fervor. The Balanced Discipline Focus feat allows these psions to better align their Discipline Focus class feature to reflect this equal and parallel approach. Balanced Discipline Focus Prerequisite: Psion, Discipline Focus class feature Benefit: You may replace one of the two powers granted by your Discipline Focus class feature with a power from the other psionic focus (Telepathy or Telekinesis). Special: The chosen power must require the same type of action to use as the power you are choosing to abandon. Commentary: With most classes, there are definite advantages to choosing one specific build over another (in the form of “riders” to some powers that add effects based on a chosen build feature). With the Psion class (and all of the psionic classes, as far as I can see), there are (at present) no riders to any powers that favor one build choice over another. As a result, it seems to me that the choice of the Telepathic or Telekinetic psion build and powers really comes down to how a player conceptualizes their character, more than by power choice, influenced to some degree by the ability bonuses granted to races that could be considered “psion-friendly.” To reflect the balanced approach that some Psion players may take to ability score allotment (with equal or near-equal Wisdom and Charisma scores) and power selection, I thought there should be a way to allow a little more flexibility in their concept and class features. Thus, this homebrew feat was born. I thought about adding a requirement that the feat be chosen at 1st level only, but there doesn't seem to be a precedent for such a requirement in 4th edition like there was in 3.5e, and I didn't want to prevent players from balancing their build after a little experience playing the class out. The action-type requirement was added to reflect the fact that both Discipline Focus choices grant one minor-action power and one free-action power, an approach I thought it best to preserve. In effect, a player choosing this feat with the Telekinetic build could sacrifice the Far Hand power for the Distract power, or replace Forceful Push with Send Thoughts. The Telepathic Psion's choices would be the reverse. Any thoughts, suggestions, criticisms or advice?
#2 759mages Apr 14, 2010 11:04:40	Actually, while conceptually I really like where you're going, as written this is a very bad idea. Mechanically, distract and force push are far more helpful class features, while far hand and send thoughts are generally considered more flavorful and less useful powers. So, given your feat as written, no one would ever choose to have both far hand and send thoughts, and every psion that took this feat (and as written which one wouldn't?) would have distract and force push, a potentially powerful and broken combination. That said, this supposes that at least one of your players will be an exploitive min-max type player. Again, I like the idea, I would just swap the pairings to match the usefulness of the powers, as opposed to the action necessary to take it.
#3 knightsfyre Apr 19, 2010 18:51:58	Looking back on it, I can definitely see the broken-ness of allowing the player to take both Distract and Forceful Push.  Swapping the pairings as you suggest would result in the player being able to take Distract and Far Hand (rather than the standard Distract/Send Thoughts) or to take Forceful Push and Send Thoughts (instead of Forceful Push/Far Hand).  This fix preserves the flexibility aspect of the original feat concept, and gives the player a power that is most useful in combat and one that can be useful for RP or social situations, just as with the class feature as written in PHB3.  I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that one combo works on free actions for both powers while the other combo runs on minor actions; I really would like to preserve the minor/free balance of the original feature. Maybe if the feat also changed the action type of Forceful Push to Minor and changed Far Hand to Free, that would be sufficient?
#4 belile Apr 22, 2010 19:38:57	Calling the combination of Distract and Forceful Push "broken" is overstating it a bit.  Is it stronger than the other combinations?  Yes, but it did come at the cost a feat.  Compare the above homebrew feat to the Discipline Adept or Expanded Discipline Focus feats and you'll see that it's not really that out of line. I don't think preserving the free versus minor action balance is needed, so I'd remove the special line.  However, you might think about changing the name of the feat.  How can you be "balanced" once there are more than 2 disciplines (e.g. when Psionic Power comes out)?  I'd suggest something like "Schism Focus". I'd also add a prerequisite of 13 Wis, 13 Chr to the feat. Another option is that the feat just gives you the less powerful discipline power (i.e. Send Thoughts or Far Hand) from the other discipline.  Then you could have a paragon feat called "Greater Schism Focus" that would allow you to obtain the more powerful discipline power (i.e. Distract or Forceful Push) and would have a prerequisites of Wis 15, Chr 15. The downside is that these feats, like Expanded Discipline Focus would need to be rewritten whenever a new Discipline Focus becomes available.