Psionic Bias?

[InkEyes]

Those are static, you'll note, or involve die rolls. There isn't another deductible and modular point system in 3.5, unless you count arrows with Multishot. (And this is why I stayed away from guns in d20 Modern and from bows in 3.5. I'm messy on keeping track of those non-static numbers.)

They're not absolutely static bonuses. Hit points function pretty much the same as power points, and power attack varies depending on on the level of the attacker and how much BAB/AC you dump in (and that's just as fiddly as augmenting powers). But really, all of these involve some math, and over time you might memorize how they change. The same thing happens with psionic powers. A 7th level psion puts 7 power points into Crystal Shard and gets 7d6 damage, that's the same as a fireball of that level. Some are a bit harder: +1 to AC and saves for one power point; +1 additional/3 power points, but we are all able to cope with odd scaling like that in magic missile or similar spells.

Which I find to be a lot more complex than just scratching fireball off your spell list and rolling for damage. Your damage rolls will be exactly the same for a fairly good period of time (levels) with fireball, versus a psionic power, where you'll roll differently and pay for it differently depending on how you augment it.

Psionic classes aren't very different from a sorcerer, is keeping a running tally of how many sorcerer spells used per day much harder than a running tally of expended power points? Wizards have a different challenge though, they have to dig through a massive book of spells every day and cherry pick the best ones for the situation, and then apply any meta magic they want to the spells. In a way, they're rewarded for their prep time with that quick check-off during combat. As a trade off, players of psions or sorcerers will probably become familiar with their dramatically smaller spell lists and won't need to spend as much time figuring out the effects of a spell. Sure, the best spells a Wizard will know will probably be the ones they prepare every day, but in the situations where they might need a very specific spell on their list they don't have to spend time wishing they'd prepared 3 Overland Flights rather than 3 Polymorphs that day.

I don't see how you could say that is easier, either for the player or the DM (who has to watch for player fudges, something my DM kept catching me on with my Gunslinger.)

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying here, but here's what I'm getting: your DM was correcting you when you did something wrong with a mechanic you were inexperienced in? Well, the DM is the rules arbiter so I guess he was doing a good job. I've had that happen with plenty of little quirks in the game. If a DM is not confident in his/her knowledge of the system I don't object to disallowing it. I do think that Psionics are easier to introduce a new player to than Vancian Casting.

EDIT: And I love how everyone is implying I'm an idiot who can't find the right dice size simply because I find power points to have more bookkeeping.

Now I'm really confused... your post is the only one I've seen that mentions dice.

I think a lot of it has to do with familiarity. For example, lots of people don't bother adding a system like Incarnum to their games because they aren't familiar with it and don't know the rules as well as arcane magic. You'll have to constantly look up what things go where and do what. Its similar with psionics. People who don't know it will have trouble using it because they haven't learned it as well as the systems they ARE familiar with.

It doesn't help that Incarnum mechanics are a bit convoluted. Fun, but troublesome.