The Gaming Den

Kaelik wrote:Um... you guys are fucking stupid.

1) Psion can use their best power 4 times a day exactly like a Wizard at level 1, then 5 times at level 2, then 6 times, then 7, then 8 at level 5. I'm sure it stops scaling at some point, but I'm tired of flipping back between two pages on the SRD and doing math.

According to the SRD, Level 1 Psion/Wilders have 2 PPs, meaning if they don't Overchannel they get two uses each day of Level 1 powers. At 2nd level, they get 4 PPs for 2-4 uses depending on whether you want to augment to be level-appropriate. (You can blow a feats for +2 PP each, but you'd be a moron to do it considering the truly awesome feats you'd be losing and the diminishing returns on it as you level.)

At 5th level, you have 25 PPs and can get you five uses of level 3 powers or level 1-2 powers augmented to appropriate DCs/effects. (Since 95% of level 1-2 powers are ass when not augmented, we'll assume you do that).

Basically, you don't get enough PPs to do a level-appropriate thing in the 10 estimated daily turns of combat most adventures expect until level 12, and that level-cap goes a lot higher if you are expected to do anything else. I mean, whipping out your all-powerful Control Light at 5th level is another use of a 3rd level power you are burning.

Basically, you mostly compare the Psionic classes to the Firemage by saying "well, if we are willing to have someone who won't be contributing at all to combat most turns, we can get some extra potential utility by going with a Psionic guy and not a Firemage."

That being said, there are like three psionic builds that get around PP limits by abusing individual powers that are so awesome you auto-win a combat or break the PP mechanic. Considering these beg for DMs to stealth nerf by adjusting monsters, the campaign, or the rules, I don't really count them.

I won't even address Body Fuel madness because ending up dead for a few extra uses per day is so anti-party I don't see it actually working in a group.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Firebolt has short range, while 'set on fire' has Medium range. So, there's that.

But Fireball is also long range and does 5 times as much damage as Ignite. I mean, if you were really intent on running away, like your whole party was running from someone, and they ended their turn in medium range, and you guys are going to successfully get away, maybe, but other than that, not sure how someone can be outside close range, but you can't afford to do a full round action to do 5 times as much damage. (Yes I know, it's technically less than 5, because chances of save and Impress Flames on a dot, no one cares).

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Also, Fireball is a full-round action, and it can hurt the Fire Mage, while Fire Burst is a Standard action and cannot. I'll admit that Fire Burst is of sharply limited utility compared to Fireball, but having played an actual game with a Fire Mage, there were times it came up.

Yes, if there are 4 or more enemies within 10ft of you, and you are an idiot, you might want to use Burst Flame. But if their are less than 4, you actually want to use Firebolt, and if they aren't completely surrounding you, IE are all in front of you, you just place the Fireball so that it burns them all, and not you.

I'm not saying that no situation will ever occur where you will use Ignite of Burst of Flame, but I am saying that a Psion has eleven powers known at this level, and so any criteria which narrows that 11 powers to one power is also going to reduce the Firemage.

Here is Firemage the Psion's powers known:

1) Energy Missile the Firebolt power.
2) Energy Retort, the Light yourself on Fire power.
3) Energy Burst, the power that replicates Burst of Flame with a single power point spent, but can also do 5d6+5 damage.
4) Control Light, the Smokeless Fire power.
5) Specified Energy Adaptation, the Fire Resistance Power.
6) Energy Cone, because for some reason, Psionic Fireball is a level 4 spell, but Psionic Cone of Cold is level 3. This will sub, along with Energy Missiles increased range over Firebolt, and taking Energy Ball at level 7, to count for Fireball.
7-11) FOUR MORE POWERS THAN THE FIREMAGE AFTER MIMICKING EVERY SINGLE FUCKING ABILITY THE FIREMAGE HAS!

Yes, the Firemage is a better class than the Psion, because it doesn't have stupid power points. But the problem with Psions is not fucking ability spam, because you can goddam make one that has every power the Firemage has, and four more.

K wrote:According to the SRD, Level 1 Psion/Wilders have 2 PPs, meaning if they don't Overchannel they get two uses each day of Level 1 powers.

Great, now get back to me when you've read enough of the Psionic rules to know why that is either you being wrong, or you being a lying liar.

I'll give you a hint, in case it's the first. I said I was flipping back and forth between two SRD pages to figure out uses per day, and I don't need an SRD page to know the manifestor level of a Psion at levels 1-5.

K wrote:I won't even address Body Fuel madness because ending up dead for a few extra uses per day is so anti-party I don't see it actually working in a group.

Body fuel only works like that if you're retarded. What you actually do is take Mind over Body with Body Fuel and burn 5 stat points for 10 PP that you'll then regenerate while you sleep. And then you fucking ignore your ability to meditate for PP until level 2, when you switch back to meditating normally. At level 3+ you do the burn thing anyways and use it to fill up cog crystals for an extra 10 PP every day that you can share with your buddies.

Kaelik wrote:

K wrote:According to the SRD, Level 1 Psion/Wilders have 2 PPs, meaning if they don't Overchannel they get two uses each day of Level 1 powers.

Great, now get back to me when you've read enough of the Psionic rules to know why that is either you being wrong, or you being a lying liar.

I'll give you a hint, in case it's the first. I said I was flipping back and forth between two SRD pages to figure out uses per day, and I don't need an SRD page to know the manifestor level of a Psion at levels 1-5.

Psst. Bonus pp from int.

http://dmreference.com/SRD/Psionic/Clas ... esters.htm

CapnTthePirateG wrote:

Kaelik wrote:

K wrote:According to the SRD, Level 1 Psion/Wilders have 2 PPs, meaning if they don't Overchannel they get two uses each day of Level 1 powers.

Great, now get back to me when you've read enough of the Psionic rules to know why that is either you being wrong, or you being a lying liar.

I'll give you a hint, in case it's the first. I said I was flipping back and forth between two SRD pages to figure out uses per day, and I don't need an SRD page to know the manifestor level of a Psion at levels 1-5.

Psst. Bonus pp from int.

http://dmreference.com/SRD/Psionic/Clas ... esters.htm

Yes, bonus PP from high ability scores is anywhere from 0-2 at first level and getting better each level. With the best possible score, you could do something level-appropriate for the ten combat turns of combat each day as early as level 9.

Whoo you.

Mind Over Body would be a good trick with Body Fuel, except you just burned your Con bonus for PP and now aren't recovering more than the base 1 ability point per day.

Cog Crystals are also wicked expensive. At 5th level you can afford one big enough for an extra use of a level-appropriate power if you have no other equipment. Color me not impressed.

Basically, all these accounting tricks lead to psions not getting to use their stuff very often, and being complete failures if they run into a single extended combat or are asked to do things outside of combat.

K wrote:Basically, all these accounting tricks lead to psions not getting to use their stuff very often, and being complete failures if they run into a single extended combat or are asked to do things outside of combat.

Which has zero fucking relevance to whether Psions ability spam.

No one is saying Psions are the best class, or even particularly good. But I specifically said that anyone who allows the Firemage in their game shouldn't be complaining about how Psions spam the same ability over and over, because Fire Mages do the same thing, but more so, and are still something we like enough that we made it up.

Man, the goalposts are shifting so fast in this thread, somebody must have cast Haste on them. After about a dozen posts on how the Psion is supposedly less versatile than the Fire Mage, you're suddenly going on about how it has less endurance? Well of course it does - so do all fucking classes that aren't "all at-will".

I still haven't heard anything that makes Psionics worse than other things that are already in the game. I don't fucking care about your hypothetical campaign where you custom-build everything and ban all the core classes, because at that point you're in pure homebrew territory and the very concept of splatbooks is meaningless. All I'm hearing is that psionics doesn't singlehandedly fix D&D, and therefore it is terrible.

Ice9 wrote:Man, the goalposts are shifting so fast in this thread, somebody must have cast Haste on them. After about a dozen posts on how the Psion is supposedly less versatile than the Fire Mage, you're suddenly going on about how it has less endurance? Well of course it does - so do all fucking classes that aren't "all at-will".

It's not goalpost shifting, it's a looking at the total number of options over time as a metric for versatility.

As an example for level 9:

On round/action 1, Psion wins. He has a bunch of choices while a Fire Mage has fewer.

On round/action 10+(ish), the Psion has no choices and the Fire Mage still has some.

Versatility Winner: The Fire Mage wins since we can expect that more than ten actions and/or rounds of actions are going to be required each day.

I mean, if you don't look at options over time then whenever someone gets access to limited wish they become infinitely versatile characters. Obviously, that's not true.

So just to be clear, your argument is that the Fire Mage is more versatile than the Wizard.

Okay. Great.

The problem with Psionics is that the Fire Mage is more versatile than the Wizard.

Okay guys, thread done, go home.

K wrote:The Fire Mage wins since we can expect that more than ten actions and/or rounds of actions are going to be required each day.

Really? In D&D? I put it to you a decent party has like 5-7 rounds of actions per day.

And Ice, this is a fucking forum all about homebrew. Half the people here are here because of the Tomes, which I hear are homebrew. That has everything to do with the argument: allow things that are good, create things that are good. If it's shit or annoying, fix it or kick it to the curb. You can do this with anything, including half the core stuff. Guess what, hippie crystal ectoplasm fanbois? Your shit fits into that latter category!

I guess that's why when people mention D&D on here, it's always with the assumption that you're ditching all the core classes (because they suck) and substituting your own homebrew ones?
Oh wait, very few people do that, and a lot of Tome material is built on the assumption that they don't.

Kaelik wrote:So just to be clear, your argument is that the Fire Mage is more versatile than the Wizard.

Okay. Great.

The problem with Psionics is that the Fire Mage is more versatile than the Wizard.

Okay guys, thread done, go home.

Wizard beats Fire Mage because of the cap on actions per day AND because the Wizard's cap on potential actions is usually wildly high because of extra spells learned and the fact that he can leave slots open to memorize things as needed.

So a 10th level Wizard will potentially have 35 actions out of an potential list of probably 70+ in adventures that only ask for 20-25 actions (combat, utility, plot, etc). Wizard spells are also just more versatile individually, but that's another level of complexity we'll ignore for a moment.

The Fire Mage is looking at the same fixed options for 20-25 required actions, while the Psion is looking at probably one and half times the options for half the actions and gets progressively worse as more actions are called for.

Of course, in an abnormal situation where more than 35 actions a day are asked for, Fire Mage pulls forward ahead of the wizard, but the number of actions has to be really high to make any claims of the Fire Mage being more versatile, probably on the scale of a hundred or more actions.

I think I just found my new favorite D&D forum. Any place that knows that JaronK is a complete and total fucking idiot gets my vote.

Every time I read crap on BG and GitP I want to punch myself in the face, repeatedly.

I think I just found my new favorite D&D forum. Any place that knows that JaronK is a complete and total fucking idiot gets my vote.

Every time I read crap on BG and GitP I want to punch myself in the face, repeatedly.

you're actually dead and this is hell. enjoy your stay.

Psychic Robot wrote:

I think I just found my new favorite D&D forum. Any place that knows that JaronK is a complete and total fucking idiot gets my vote.

Every time I read crap on BG and GitP I want to punch myself in the face, repeatedly.

you're actually dead and this is hell. enjoy your stay.

Where are all the sluts and whores then?

Where are all the sluts and whores then?

good question where is koumei

liquid150 wrote:I think I just found my new favorite D&D forum. Any place that knows that JaronK is a complete and total fucking idiot gets my vote.

Every time I read crap on BG and GitP I want to punch myself in the face, repeatedly.

I always find people hatin' on JaronK amusing. Everytime he elicits such a strong response he wins.

Juton wrote:

liquid150 wrote:I think I just found my new favorite D&D forum. Any place that knows that JaronK is a complete and total fucking idiot gets my vote.

Every time I read crap on BG and GitP I want to punch myself in the face, repeatedly.

I always find people hatin' on JaronK amusing. Everytime he elicits such a strong response he wins.

By this you mean he's a troll?

I approve.

I take it "K" and "JaronK" are the same?

Doom wrote:I take it "K" and "JaronK" are the same?

No.

No, they aren't.

Doom wrote:I take it "K" and "JaronK" are the same?

liquid150 wrote:I think I just found my new favorite D&D forum. Any place that knows that JaronK is a complete and total fucking idiot gets my vote.

Every time I read crap on BG and GitP I want to punch myself in the face, repeatedly.

Welcome, you'll get on just fine here!

Ice: now you're intentionally being stupid. One of the first things the Tomes do is say "These classes (Fighter, Monk, Barbarian...) are embarrassingly shit, they're GONE! Now we're going to replace them with homebrew stuff."

Now if you want to go into some magical land where people don't use stuff not published by WotC and where terrible shit is still included in the game for anyone to bathe in, you can do that, but it's not the Den.

Koumei wrote:Now if you want to go into some magical land where people don't use stuff not published by WotC and where terrible shit is still included in the game for anyone to bathe in, you can do that, but it's not the Den.

In my experience, that "magical land" is most tables. It may not be a good thing, but it's super common.

Maxus wrote:

Doom wrote:I take it "K" and "JaronK" are the same?

No.

No, they aren't.

I am not JaronK, just to be clear