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Thread: Psionic Bias?
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2010-04-03, 11:44 AM (ISO 8601)
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2010-04-03, 11:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Psionic Bias?
The point is not that psionics is science fiction, but that the fluff of 3rd Edition psionics is very similar to the fluff of psionics you find in science fiction works.
We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.
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2010-04-03, 11:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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2010-04-03, 11:54 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Psionic Bias?
*grins at Terazul and inclines his head*
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2010-04-03, 11:54 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Psionic Bias?
4e psionics so far from what I've seen got the system right and the others are a bit odd. (I have yet to download the newest DDI so bare with me)
Psionics gives you at-wills and dailies that you can boost with power points, once these power points are drained you can no longer boost your abilities but can still use them. Makes more sense than how the other cources work. With other sources even if you are to tired to perform your encounter powers (you expended them) you can use a daily that is more powerful and more taxing on the character than the encounter powers.
I would love to see a write up of 3.5 magic using the pp system (or 4e's other sources working more like the pp system)
Fluff doesn't really matter that much, you can easily change the fluff to fit the mechanics. I just hate when they use fluff then put a mechanic behind it that doesn't fit no matter how hard they want it to. Its annoying but it can work.Last edited by SSGoW; 2010-04-03 at 11:56 AM.
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2010-04-03, 12:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Psionic Bias?
The problem here is that you're thinking of encounter powers in terms of fatigue, when that isn't the only thing at work - or even a particularly important element.
All encounter powers say is "you can't do this over and over again".
The reason they don't make much effort to tie it to any one explanation (aside from the 'fudge' where encounter powers are regained by taking a tea break) is that representing everything that's at work would make for a broken and unplayable mess, and would be potentially "too random". And focusing on one thing to the exclusion of all else would be weird.
It's far easier to just write the rule and let the DM decide which factor is in play, when, and how, as she would do when narrating hitpoints.
One of the biggest factors is actually the separation of player and character knowledge - simply put, your character knows nothing of hitpoints. What you see as an awesome crit, your character sees as a failure. She hasn't slowed her opponent meaningfully in the slightest, and she's not necessarily going to be enthusiastic about trying that Mysterious and Exotic Technique again.
There's also opportunity - the situation isn't always going to be nice enough to let you try one specific Mysterious and Exotic Technique.
Finally, there's composure. It's not easy to concentrate on your Mysterious Exotic Technique while standing in a room with something that's adamant that it doesn't want you alive any more.
I would love to see a write up of 3.5 magic using the pp system (or 4e's other sources working more like the pp system)Last edited by lesser_minion; 2010-04-03 at 12:49 PM.
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2010-04-03, 01:19 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Psionic Bias?
The problem here is that you can use a psionic daily even after you expended all your power points too. The power points do not affect your daily usage.
The way I look at the whole recharge mechanic is that some powers require an exertion that you cannot do every six seconds. Let's take martial, since it's the hardest fluff-wise. Encounter powers require you to use muscles which you don't usually use. Performing the encounter strains those muscles, so that in order to do it again, you need to stretch out and "recharge" those muscles. Dailies are even greater exertions. After doing it once, you've made yourself so sore that you can't use those muscles again until you get a good night's rest. You can still do easy stuff (at-wills), or even hard stuff depending on other muscles, but you can't repeatedly do something that difficult.
Yeah, it's not a perfect fluff explanation, but with a bit of hand-waving it works pretty well. That's why during my short rests my characters don't just sit there... they stretch out and practice moves (martial), or pray (divine), or meditate (psionic/arcane), or study spellbooks (wizard), or sing (bard). Whatever's the appropriate recharge for their powers.
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2010-04-03, 01:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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2010-04-03, 01:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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2010-04-03, 01:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Psionic Bias?
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2010-04-03, 02:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Psionic Bias?
My problem with Psionics in 3.5 was both fluff and crunch-related.
My problem with the fluff is purely a personal opinion. I just always thought they felt out of place in the campaigns I ran/I was in. Their background always involved cthulu-esque horrors that just seemed to be out of their element in a sword and sorcery world. I do like what I've seen for their fluff in 4e so far, but then again I haven't read the stuff in the PHB3 yet.
As far as crunch, I've played alongside every base Psionic class from 3.5 at least one time or another, and said Psionic class would always, ALWAYS be horrendously overpowered compared to the rest of the party. The absolute worst case scenario was one particular psion who I was temporarily controlling since the player had to leave early. All I needed was I think a 3rd-level power that was save-or-kill-yourself, and the DC could be augmented so high that nothing the DM had could hope to save against it, and the power could be used EVERY turn with maximum power points for an entire session without even coming close to running low. Meanwhile, both of our Arcane casters had 1, maybe 2 castings of 3rd level spells, neither of which were insta-kill, and the saves for said spells were low enough that enemies could make them if they rolled above a 14 or 15, so reasonable. The augmented Psion's DC couldn't be beat unless the DM rolled a nat 20 every time.
Now, with 4e, Psionics still look pretty powerful with all the extra at-wills, but so far less objectionable, and I actually look forward to playing a Battlemind or Monk.
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2010-04-03, 02:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Psionic Bias?
Jelly beans. keep a small container of jelly beans at your table, equal to the number of PP your character has. When you use a power, eat that amount of jelly beans, when you run out you know you need to rest. Then when you rest, refill your container from the bag. With the appropriate amount of jelly beans.
you can use beads or buttons or something, but they don't taste as yummy.
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2010-04-03, 02:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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2010-04-03, 02:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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2010-04-03, 02:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Psionic Bias?
There is no kill yourself power. There is attack yourself power. Which can cause death technically...
Can you name it.
Meanwhile, both of our Arcane casters had 1, maybe 2 castings of 3rd level spells, neither of which were insta-kill, and the saves for said spells were low enough that enemies could make them if they rolled above a 14 or 15, so reasonable. The augmented Psion's DC couldn't be beat unless the DM rolled a nat 20 every time.
Now, with 4e, Psionics still look pretty powerful with all the extra at-wills, but so far less objectionable, and I actually look forward to playing a Battlemind or Monk.
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2010-04-03, 02:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Psionic Bias?
@DiscipleOfBob
This smells of the age-old psionic rule ignorance.
You can't spend more power points on a power than your manifester level.
You therefore cannot augment any power more than the highest level power you already know.
So you have a 7th level power (or augmented equivalent) and an Int of 20. A DC of 22 is the highest you can ever make it. With the right feat combinations you could possibly get it as high as DC 24.
That isn't exactly impressive, and certainly no more impressive than what any wizard can do.
Can the psion work more high leveled powers than a wizard? Yes, because he is basically burning half his low-leveled powers to fuel it. So after that, he's toast while a wizard could still teleport away, cleric heal himself, etc. It's a trade off.Last edited by The Vorpal Tribble; 2010-04-03 at 02:25 PM.
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2010-04-03, 02:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Psionic Bias?
Firstly, it's a 4th-level power, and secondly, the situation you describe doesn't sound like anything that can happen while playing by the rules. Period. It costs four points to increase the save DC by 2, which is equivalent to manifesting a power two levels higher.
So what were your casters' 6th-level spells like? Or 8th level?
In all honesty, it sounds to me like someone made a mistake. Possibly worse considering how many power points this psion supposedly had.Last edited by lesser_minion; 2010-04-03 at 02:31 PM.
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2010-04-03, 02:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Psionic Bias?
Do you remeber what power that was and what level the characters had?
This sounds like death urge, wich is 4th level and requires at least character level 7th. And to augment the DC by +2 would require the character to be at least 11th level. At that point clerics can cast slay living and harm. And when you use heighten spell on slay living, at exactly the same DC as the psion.
This doesn't sound quite right.We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.
Spriggan's Den Heroic Fantasy Roleplaying
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2010-04-03, 02:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Psionic Bias?
My hypothesis:
a. Player cheated
b. DiscipleofBob is misinformed
or
C. DM has some pretty freaky houserules.
The fact that DM let the player cast/manifest a power above his level should be the 1st warning sign.
Remember, kids you can't augment the highest power you know: you have to be past the minimum level to do that (barring Wild Surge/Overchannel).
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2010-04-03, 02:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Psionic Bias?
Something is definately amiss here. The DM required natural 20's to overcome some powers but could easily pass spells from the arcane casters? Even when augmented to full (and even then, only some powers have increased DC from augmentation) the DC's cannot be higher than spells. A psionic power costing 9 power points (the amount of base 5th level powers or powers augmented up to that level) cannot be higher than a spell of 5th level.
Are you sure the psionic player didn't simply play a more optimised character? Are you sure he understood the commonly overlooked "cannot spend more points than your level on any one power" rule? Something has to be up if theres a 5-6 point gap in the DC range.
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2010-04-03, 02:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Psionic Bias?
It doesn't matter what player knew: Bob was the one playing the character wrong I think.
Remember, he never played them before (it sounds like) so he likely didn't know the rules. He was playing another player's character of as class he doesn't use much.
Although, since we don't know if this was Bob's error or the Player's error till Bob tells us what level Power he means (unles this is memory issue and he confused 4th lv with 3rd level power)
So, how did anyone overlook that a 5th lv manifester can't choose a 4th level power. It has to be 5th because a 6th level wizard has more than 2 3rd lv spell/day (as he mentioned in his example they did at max).
Wait, a 16 Int Wizard at 6th lv also only has 2 3rd lvs but that is very unoptimized (he should have bought a headband of Int +2 or at least have 18 Int).
So something seems off.
Even if he somehow did get access to a 4th lv power at 5th lv (What?) that is 7 PP. He can't augment at all.
He shouuld have 25 Base + 7 (16 Int)= 32 pp. He can't do that more than 4 times before he tapped out (7 x 4 = 28).Last edited by Starbuck_II; 2010-04-03 at 02:55 PM.
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2010-04-03, 03:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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2010-04-03, 03:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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2010-04-03, 04:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Psionic Bias?
Actually, given that: "I've played alongside every base Psionic class from 3.5 at least one time or another, and said Psionic class would always, ALWAYS be horrendously overpowered compared to the rest of the party," it sounds like it was not only every single person who ever played a psionic character at DiscipleofBob's table, but also every single DM who ran a game that included psionic characters at that table, who did not grok the psionics rules.
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2010-04-03, 04:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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2010-04-03, 04:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Psionic Bias?
A bunch of stuff.
I believe the ability was called Death Urge, and it basically made the target coup-de-gras itself. We were either level 6 or 7 (according to some of the people here it's a 4th level power, so I guess 7). I'll admit this game was a while ago, and I have since pushed the details out of my mind, but I will not forget how broken the psion in the party was.
We were obeying the Power Points rules, ie. not spending more than your manifester level, etc. The DC was still at least 25 while the wizard, sorcerer, and cleric were occasionally able to break 20. I should point out that NO ONE at the table was optimized, not even the Psion himself (at least to the level that people on this board seem to think is normal) This wasn't due to any obscure combination of feats, this was all in the text of ONE power and the Psion's given class features.
The only houserules we had were unrelated to the spellcasting or psionic mechanics (The changeling had a feat that let him gain stuff like the ability to shapeshift into a small creature or to get natural armor from turning into a lizardfolk, etc.)
I wouldn't be able to tell you if the classes balanced each other out at higher levels, because said game never got higher than 10th level.
The player did not cheat, as I subbed in for his character at one point, and read the ability out of the book. We had no houserules related to psionics or casting, and we were well aware of the cap power points you could spend on a power.
Even though I really didn't know how to play Psionics at the time, there were three other people at the table, including the DM, who knew Psionics well.
And while this was definitely the worst case in my experience, this wasn't the only experience of a psionic breaking the game. My first game in my area, the person playing the psion didn't really understand the character, but when the basics were pointed out to her, she was outclassing everyone in terms of damage and one-shotting whatever we went up against (granted, there wasn't an arcane caster except for the bard in that party.) There was the crit-tastic Soulknife who could change the shape of his weapon or something I still don't know how to explain. Oh, and the pyromaniac Wilder who would explode NPC's because they stole a couple of gold pieces from him.
Yeah, at the risk of flaming, I have to laugh when people on this board claim that 3.5 Psionics "aren't that bad" when I've been in at least 5 separate games that prove otherwise. I've given Psionics more than enough chances in games, and each time they never fail to outclass all the players and anything the DM can throw at them.
I will admit, however, that 4e Psionics look promising and I can't wait to try one out.
EDIT: Also, they were different DM's and different players each time, ranging from complete newbie to experienced but new to psionics to seasoned veteran since second edition, and each time one of these classes would get ridiculously powerful (all the time) the rest of us would look up the rules and try to find something that they were doing wrong. They weren't.Last edited by DiscipleofBob; 2010-04-03 at 05:03 PM.
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2010-04-03, 04:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Psionic Bias?
If you haven't already, scan it, embrace it.
http://community.wizards.com/go/thre...is_overpowered
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2010-04-03, 05:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Psionic Bias?
How was he getting DC's of 25? That means he had a PM ability of 33-28, depending on feat selection. Yeah, Save or Dies are pretty powerful if you have that, but so are a wizards/clerics/whatevers.
He fears his fate too much, and his reward is small, who will not put it to the touch, to win or lose it all.
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