[D&D 3.5] The Unconventional Wisdom of the Den

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I would argue that if a monster you dominate is better than you are, then a duration of concentration isn't that bad if you get it early. Especially with the overchannel shenanigans that K is talking about.

[Josh_Kablack]

It's broken both ways. Too weak and then perhaps even too strong.

The base psi classes were worse than core casters yet probably had more infinite loops and poor wordings - meaning that playing one was an exercise in what you could get away with.

So the only thing we've learned in these past hundred posts is that people who think Psi is perfectly fine go on Ignore.

[PhoneLobster]

Vancian casting is baddy mc-bad bad

It is hands down better than XPH casting. Despite yes, being baddy mc-bad bad as well. Again though, what? Do you want to run with that two wrongs make a right scheme?

Especially with the overchannel shenanigans that K is talking about.

Perhaps, and overchannel is totally awesome just because it lets you get (slightly) past one of the biggest pain in the ass unique mechanics of the XPH (your manifester level cap on augmentation).

But Overchannel itself is a horrendous mechanic. So OK, you boost your caster level, but it causes you damage, (damage you take while casting the spell, no instructions on how this interacts with concentration mechanics whatsoever). Now you get 1d4+cons HP a level. Overchannel gives you 1 MF for 1d8 damage up until level 8. Then it can give you 2 MF for 3d8. Then at level 15 it is 5d8 for 3 MF. It's not a bad deal for the cost, but the cost is pretty notable, and the general effect (and administration) of the mechanic is poorly written and generally bad. Also note that that's just the cost to raise your MF, which then raises your PP spending cap which you then need to spend PP for. Creating the enjoyable accounting experience of paying random HP and various fixed amounts of PP to cast the one power with some variable amount of Augments and basic level based traits all higher than your supposed actual caster level.

So sure. Bring up Overchannel shenanigans. They do not help the case for adding XPH to your game.

Next I suggest K throws in the Wilder mechanics that let you boost even further off the standard Manifester Level for your character. That would make for REALLY awesome ahead of the curve powers. With a really awesome complex bullshit mechanic to facilitate that.

But seriously THIS is the problem with the basic XPH PP cost and casting mechanics I referred to off hand initially. Wildly varying (and very elaborate) power costs for powers that range from utter crap to a caster level that ends up being a MULTIPLE of your actual caster level.

Walking in as a level one character casting spells as intended for a level 3 character (and then pretty much falling over after several complex pieces of PP, HP and action cost administration) is... intended. Walking in as a level 3 character and casting spells as a level 6 character and doing it a couple of times and then falling over... is intended. Walking in as a level 8 character and throwing down spells as a level 13 is... intended. Walking in at level 19 and throwing down level spells as a level 28 is straight up on your naked character profile without any multi-class, prestige, complex spell stacking or item based shenanigans.

Thanks to the augmentation mechanics and the various means to use and abuse them your characters ACTUAL caster level is relatively irrelevant to large swathes of the traits of the powers you use which will be alternatively well above or below what is appropriate for your actual character level. This is a bad thing in BOTH directions. And in a way that basically will be hard written into the game the moment you include basic XPH classes, powers and feats. This is real functional "this will actually happen in game" breakage rather than the wanky "doomsday exploit" scenarios many people panic about from core spells or complex multi-prestige class or polymorph MM treasure hunt stacking schemes.

That is not a good thing. And it is part of the basic mechanics of the classes, feats, and powers. Not some bullshit single item burried in the DMG.

[...You Lost Me]

Vancian casting is baddy mc-bad bad

It is hands down better than XPH casting. Despite yes, being baddy mc-bad bad as well. Again though, what? Do you want to run with that two wrongs make a right scheme?

Herp derp wrongs make a right derp.

That's totally inapplicable. Psionics aren't fixing D&D, fuck you very much. They're adding to it. Psionics are bad the way vancian is bad, so adding psionics isn't hurting the system, the same way it's not helping the system. You are dumb for thinking that anybody here is trying to fix D&D with psionics.

[Leress]

True it doesn't hurt the system, but it does hurt the game. Having two shitty systems instead of one is just bad period.

[A Man In Black]

Has anyone pointed out that power point systems (even when they work right) cause casters to simply spam their most effective attack over and over again?

[PhoneLobster]

so adding psionics isn't hurting the system, the same way it's not helping the system.

So then you are not running with the two wrongs make a right theory but instead the far more obscure and less popular "Two wrongs make just one wrong." Theory.

Interesting theory. Perhaps if you imitate psychic robot more it may gain traction!

[Prak]

Kind of more along the lines of "It's already wrong, why does it bother how many wrongs went into it?" Sorta like saying "He already blew up an orphanage! Why do we have to argue about how many people he killed trying to flee the scene?"

[Koumei]

But to just throw more fuel onto the fire of stupid is a terrible idea, and I put it to you that there is a better alternative: you cut bad shit out of the game, including from core. So if the Psibook has a feat or item that doesn't rely on its stupid mechanics and is neither pointlessly shit nor "stupid broken", then you let it in. Likewise if someone says "I WANT TO BE A PHB FIGHTER" you tell them "No." and get them to play something that isn't a turd.

Also, having a 4-page argument about something is not something that is limited to the Den, so I imagine it doesn't really qualify here. That said though...

More obscure wisdom of the Den: making a one paragraph insult that cleverly avoids rude words and compares people to ogres, as well as playing with their semantics and so on, is not actually clever. It detracts from the actual argument into "Oh, that's a clever use of words there!" and smug intellectual masturbation. Instead, just saying "Go suck a barrel of cocks" will suffice as code for "Here is a generic insult. Also I disagree with you and think your idea is terrible." and people can move on to the argument at hand.

Also: saying "fuck" never hurt anybody (not including reprisals - the actual word is not a real-life Power Word: Kill). Other forums have yet to learn this.

[Kaelik]

Special Denisms:

Go suck a Barrel of Cocks.

It's not an Ad hominem, I'm not saying your argument is wrong because you are an idiot. I am saying your argument is wrong, here is why, and also, you are an idiot.

[Dominicius]

It may be a close match but I repeat. There is little or nothing of value that the psychic warrior actual does that makes up for losing the small amount of HP and BAB the fighter gets.

Holy fuck. That is so stupid I can't even see straight right now.

The HP issue is overcome by using both vigor and share pain on your psicrystal, causing you to have twice the hp of a fighter. And that is not even accounting for concealment. And if you think that the bonus from a full BAB matters compared to a full BAB then you are actually dumb. The Psy Warrior has access to Lions Charge, Dimension Slide, Ally Swap and Dimension Door which allows him the advantage of mobility in combat. And then once you get linked power + Shizm you can easily manifest any of your buffs and powers mid combat.

Not only that but the Psy Warrior also gets bonus feats, not a lot but enough that he can do the same shticks as the fighter, only because he actually has powers, he can do it better. And if he decides to use feat leech on his psicrystal he can actually have more useful feats than the fighter.

Augmentation is not a hard concept to grasp, you punch harder - you get tired faster. This pretty intuitive to any bloke on the street, the problem is that is was implemented poorly as you were given very little incentive to use your powers not fully augmented.


As for the whole BoEF thing. I admit I might be wrong on it but I think it mostly depends on the audience.

[Winnah]

Shizm

Schism is the shizm.

You just brightened my day.

[Dominicius]

Spelling mistakes are magic like that.

[PhoneLobster]

The HP issue is overcome by using both vigor and share pain on your psicrystal, causing you to have twice the hp of a fighter.

You just blew two feats on that. Since ugh, you know, one of those isn't actually a Psychic Warrior power so you need Expanded Knowledge and you need to blow a feat for the sucky crystal.

This strategy does not kick in until 4th level. When it kicks in it costs you MORE than your entire base PP total. And all your bonus feats up until then.

Considering you could have just cast vigor on yourself eliminating the feat cost and halving the PP cost as well as cutting down on ludicrous accounting and DM anger and confusion at your tricksy ways I have no idea why you don't just cast Vigor on yourself.

I also have no idea why you don't just do this as a Wilder instead. And walk in at level 4 with Vigor alone to add a solid 30 HP. And the wilder actually COULD just take share pain without the feat.

And that is not even accounting for concealment.

Well OK now you just ran out of PP for certain. You have concealment that a fighter could just gain from a cheap ass potion and some extra temporary HP and a pet rock. You also have less feats, less BAB, less base HP, and even less feats again thanks to the feat cost of your strategy.

You aren't all that bad, some temporary HP at that level is fairly nice still, vigor is all up a crazy good ability (better on a Wilder, but still), but you aren't all that good either. Any fighter pulling similar combination shopping around with out of class powers like you used is going to be pulling similar effectiveness.

Or you know, if you like HP and punching things you could just be a Barbarian. Or invest a bit in Constitution which is easier to do when you don't have MAD requirements for a Wisdom score.

The Psy Warrior has access to Lions Charge, Dimension Slide, Ally Swap and Dimension Door which allows him the advantage of mobility in combat.

And how many, many, many levels do you wait to gain the PP to use all of those? Let alone with a frequency to have a dramatic impact or even sufficient consecutive use to call actual "mobility"?

And why aren't you just doing that as a Wilder or a Psion?

And then once you get linked power + Shizm you can easily manifest any of your buffs and powers mid combat.

I wouldn't call it easily. Not with a 6 caster level penalty on the effects. Not with Schism being an out of class specialist power requiring another feat to burn.

Not with linked power being... wait WTF IS linked power?

And you get the extra PP where again?

Not only that but the Psy Warrior also gets bonus feats, not a lot but enough that he can do the same shticks as the fighter,

Not if he keeps blowing them all on Expanded Knowledge and Pet Rocks.

decides to use feat leech on his psicrystal he can actually have more useful feats than the fighter.

Good luck convincing anyone your pet rock even HAS feats (since it uses the poorly described familiar rules), let alone Psionic feats it doesn't actually qualify for since it lacks actual psionic powers. But hey I suppose it could turn out to be a wild talent? Right? So assuming you can wrangle familiar feat advancement out of your GM and you take wild talent then at level 4 when you gain the ability to pull this ludicrous accounting combo your familiar has Alertness and Wild Talent and your use of feat leach costing you a large portion of your daily PP allotment AND a Psycrystal affinity Feat grants you access to... one whole feat! Wild Talent! Which gives you 2 PP, which is sad because you paid 3 PP to gain those 2 PP and they are going to expire in 4 minutes!

Your amazing feat gain strategy does not impress me.

the problem is that is was implemented poorly

So your point is?

as you were given very little incentive to use your powers not fully augmented.

Which a Psychic Warrior can only do a relatively limited number of times. Especially during all the levels that a fighter type can actually matter.

[Dominicius]

You just blew two feats on that. Since ugh, you know, one of those isn't actually a Psychic Warrior power so you need Expanded Knowledge and you need to blow a feat for the sucky crystal.

They are both on P.Warriors list. Shut up.

And also, you cast vigor on yourself then cast vigor on your crystal and the use share pain. Why the hell do you believe that this strategy would imply that you would not cast vigor on yourself?

Well OK now you just ran out of PP for certain. You have concealment that a fighter could just gain from a cheap ass potion and some extra temporary HP and a pet rock. You also have less feats, less BAB, less base HP, and even less feats again thanks to the feat cost of your strategy.

Oh fuck you at the levels at which the fighter can afford that potion it is certainly not cheap and when it actually becomes cheap the P.Warrior can manifest Greater Concealing Amorpha all day long if he wants to.

Any fighter pulling similar combination shopping around with out of class powers like you used is going to be pulling similar effectiveness.

You believe that Expanded Knowledge is an out of class power? WTF?

And why aren't you just doing that as a Wilder or a Psion?

Why do people still play Sorcerer when the Wizard can do everything they do but better?!

And also, Lions Charge costs 3 pp.

Not with linked power being... wait WTF IS linked power?

One out of the two feats actually worth taking from C.Psi.

Not if he keeps blowing them all on Expanded Knowledge and Pet Rocks.

1 Expanded Knowledge and 1 for Psicrystal. Woopdedoo.

Good luck convincing anyone your pet rock even HAS feats (since it uses the poorly described familiar rules), let alone Psionic feats it doesn't actually qualify for since it lacks actual psionic powers.

You can take psionic feats even if you do not have psionic powers, you just won't be able to use them. This is an actual thing in the rules.

[PhoneLobster]

They are both on P.Warriors list. Shut up.

Apparently you are wrong.

And also, you cast vigor on yourself then cast vigor on your crystal and the use share pain. Why the hell do you believe that this strategy would imply that you would not cast vigor on yourself?

Because that really IS literally exactly ALL of your PP at that level. Including a rather generous allotment of attribute bonus PP.

It is also kinda pointless. You are level 4. 20 temporary hit points is really enough. You really SHOULD spend your remaining resources on being able to do anything else, since those 20 temporary hit points are going to make you largely able to disregard HP damage at that level for long enough to defeat things, assuming you are capable of defeating things at all, already so another 20 and a bit really is just a waste of resources. Especially since it all just lasts 4 minutes anyway so you would be better off even if all you did was save the PP to run the same bonus HP for a second encounter for the day or in the rare event of running out of the initial 20 during the first encounter.

the P.Warrior can manifest Greater Concealing Amorpha all day long if he wants to.

Really? Because at level 7 when he can first take that if he spends his entire PP pool PLUS a generous attribute bonus allotment he only actually gets 35 rounds worth. Since greater concealing blahblahblah happens to inexplicably have a nerfy 1 round per level duration compared to it's smaller cousins 1 minute a level. With some abuse of Extend Power you can rack this up a bit, but you will be lucky to push a limit of a minute or two.

You believe that Expanded Knowledge is an out of class power? WTF?

That is literally what the Expanded Knowledge feat does. Let's you shop around on another classes power list.

You can choose any power, including powers from another discipline’s list or even from another class’s list.

If you give a crap about being effective what Expanded Knowledge is for is so that Wilders and Psions can pick out of speciality or Psychic Warrior powers. It is significantly less good the other way around due to the maximum power level known shenanigan gap between the classes.

Why do people still play Sorcerer when the Wizard can do everything they do but better?!

You keep coming back to this two wrongs dilemma of yours.

And also, Lions Charge costs 3 pp.

Which is MORE than 1 quarter your total PP (even with a generous ability bonus) when you first put that power on your power list. Coincidentally It is also one quarter of your list, at that point one wonders why they didn't just make the damn list all 1/day.

One out of the two feats actually worth taking from C.Psi.

Oh so now we bring in THAT heap of crap. You are struggling to make the case for the XPH, bringing in a much worse book into your argument isn't helping.

Not if he keeps blowing them all on Expanded Knowledge and Pet Rocks.

1 Expanded Knowledge and 1 for Psicrystal. Woopdedoo.

By my count you were up to actually 2 expanded knowledges and 1 Psicyrstal affinity at that point. And, ah, yeah, woop dedoo indeed. That's a lot of feats for a large portion of your career. That's more than a third of them up to level 10. Considering the timing that this strategy becomes available to you (and the limited timing during which it is of any use) these feats are going to be somewhat MORE than a third of your total feat resources during the time you actually benefit from them.

You can take psionic feats even if you do not have psionic powers, you just won't be able to use them. This is an actual thing in the rules.

Oh really. Lets ask the rules.

Psionic Feats

Psionic feats are available only to characters and creatures with the ability to manifest powers. (In other words, they either have a power point reserve or have psi-like abilities.)

But I did make one mistake. Wild Talent which lets you actually take those feats you want to put on your pet rock? It's a general feat. So actually leach feat doesn't give you those two temporary PP for 3 PP outlay. So you have to wait until level six before this set up lets you trade an expanded knowledge feat and some PP for several minutes use of a feat which you actually give a crap about. At level nine you might just wrangle this to your first profitable additional feat. For nine minutes. At level 12 I'm prepared to call this a profitable pyramid scheme. But it's kinda elaborate yet sucky for level 12.

Not impressed. In so many ways. Accounting, complexity, and over all return. It's a stupid way to use some stupid mechanics.

[K]

So sure. Bring up Overchannel shenanigans. They do not help the case for adding XPH to your game.

What case?

I was just pointing out that your thesis of "psionic guys are worse at mind control than a Wizard when they should be better" was crazy wrong. When you actually make a character with the base rules, you can be wildly good at mind control.

If you want to change the conversation and point out how the other mechanics are corrosive to good gameplay, then go for that. You won't get a lot of argument because there are like five good to decent reasons to not include psionics in your game.

That being said, power levels are not one of those issues. Psionics were clearly designed for people to do one completely awesome thing a combat before running out of resources.

[...You Lost Me]

so adding psionics isn't hurting the system, the same way it's not helping the system.

So then you are not running with the two wrongs make a right theory but instead the far more obscure and less popular "Two wrongs make just one wrong." Theory.

Interesting theory. Perhaps if you imitate psychic robot more it may gain traction!

If you divide by zero on a calculator, you get "ERROR". If you divide by zero again, you do not get "DOUBLE FUCKING ERROR", you just get "ERROR" again. That's sort of like how rules work. Psionics has "ERROR" popping up like vancian casting has "ERROR" popping up, but nowhere does the system fucking shut down or break to pieces because OHGODSOMEBODYPUTPSIONICSINWHATTHEFUCKEXPLODE.

And if you continue to quote colloquialisms, just the like the one you've been spouting that has no merit in this conversation, you'll find that people treat you like a retard more and more.

[hogarth]

Has anyone pointed out that power point systems (even when they work right) cause casters to simply spam their most effective attack over and over again?

Yes, like sorcerers.

Just to sum up, every argument on the Den about psionics is one of these two:

• OMG NOVA
• I don't like the specific psionic power/feat/ability X

Both of which have directly analogous situations with regular magic that no one ever says "boo" about.

[Josh_Kablack]

Both of which have directly analogous situations with regular magic that no one ever says "boo" about.

Baloney, there's a lot of ZOMG Nova stuff involving regular magic around this forum - Chain Binding Effreet, Negative Enegry Tacquitos, Spelldancing, Incanatrix, Persist abuse, Infinite Caster level Blashpemies, etc, etc.

And while it's a bit harder to find, there's stuff condemning the assumptions of the default magic set- in a "I don't like spell X, Y and/or Z because setup". Often it's WSoD issues over ressurections, but if you look you can also find people hatin' on the way even low to mid level transit spells force planar cosmology assumptions on a D&D game and what a crock of bean-countey-bullshit vancian casting itself is.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Has anyone pointed out that power point systems (even when they work right) cause casters to simply spam their most effective attack over and over again?

Yes, like sorcerers.

Just to sum up, every argument on the Den about psionics is one of these two:

• OMG NOVA
• I don't like the specific psionic power/feat/ability X

Both of which have directly analogous situations with regular magic that no one ever says "boo" about.

Sorcerers spam their most effective attack over and over again until they run out of max level spell slots, then they spam their most effective max - 1 level attack over and over again until they run out of max - 1 level spell slots, iterating through spell levels until they have nothing left.

Psionicists spam their most effective attack over and over again until they have no more power points.

To look more at the numbers, a psion spams her best power eight or ten times and then is done for the day. A sorcerer spams her best four or five times, then follows up with five or six of the next level, and then six or seven of the level below that.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

My only complaint about psi is that if you aren't cheesing it, it is a bit weaker than just playing a sorcerer (who is also not cheesing it). And my players freak out whenever a psionic monster shows up for no obvious reason.

[A Man In Black]

Yes, like sorcerers.

Not like sorcerers at all. Sorcerers are forced to stop spamming beacuse they ran out of the relevant spell slots, while a psion just spams the most efficient effect for both his first and last PP.

[Kaelik]

I'm fucking confused how people who like classes that give everything at will, can legitimacy complain about getting ability spam in their D&D.

I mean, if you complain for 30 minutes about the firemage, then I might believe your hatred of Psionics for it's focus on spamming best ability is anything but hypocrisy.

[MGuy]

I only don't like ability spam if there are no other valid options. If spamming is just an option and I can reasonably do other things then everything is fine.