The Gaming Den

With the XPHB's recent publishing, it seems the revised Psychic Warrior is getting a lot of fan notoriety for being both better than 3.0 Psychic Warrior and better than 3.0 or 3.5 Fighter. And we are talking as either a frontliner, archer, or mobility combatant.

Throughout the 20 level life of a Fighter and a Psychic Warrior, which one do feel is the mechanically superior option? Remember, the big issue is the "power-up time" of the Psychic Warrior. Where in that round of 2 it takes for him to power-up, the Fighter often makes a big dent in his opponent.

I've actually heard complaints that the Psywar is weaker in 3.5, due to lack of Weapon Specialization, disappearance of combat modes without any compensation, etc.

That said, a Psywar that properly uses Quicken Power will probably be better than a fighter at higher levels. The right buff powers, used as swift actions, will quickly boost him in a fight.

The Psionic fighting feats are crazy powerful in comparison to normal fighter feats, and there's a 9th level power that lets you learn powers outside of your own power list, so I'd say that the PsyWar is hands down superior to a Fighter

I'd say that the [not-fighter] is superior to the fighter every day of the week.

Draco_Argentum at [unixtime wrote:1092703575[/unixtime]]I'd say that the [not-fighter] is superior to the fighter every day of the week.

Yeah, anything beats the core fighter.

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthrea ... br][br]The link provided is an 8 page debate thread over at EnWorld. With the vast majority of the so-called "experts" stating that the Fighter is superior. And some experts actually stating that the Fighter is an above-average core class. Probably meaning better than the Rogue, but worse than the Cleric, Druid, Wizard, etc.

I realize the people on this forum are extremely anti-Fighter, but what I see at EnWorld rarely supports that stance. I would also say the wotc Min/Max board is also somewhat anti-Fighter.

I realize the people on this forum are extremely anti-Fighter, but what I see at EnWorld rarely supports that stance.

I have no idea what this means.

By the way.

Emphasis all mine.

And some experts actually stating that the Fighter is an above-average core class. Probably meaning better than the Rogue,

*GURVE*

Guest (Unregistered) at [unixtime wrote:1092759805[/unixtime]]http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthrea ... br][br]The link provided is an 8 page debate thread over at EnWorld. With the vast majority of the so-called "experts" stating that the Fighter is superior. And some experts actually stating that the Fighter is an above-average core class. Probably meaning better than the Rogue, but worse than the Cleric, Druid, Wizard, etc.

That's exactly why I hardly ever go to the EnWorld board. Ever since they hounded Frank out, I've got little use for them.

I can't actually look at that thread, but what part of GMW, Divine Might, Righteous Might, and Divine Power, or Beads of Karma and Holy Word, do they not understand?

Guest (Unregistered) at [unixtime wrote:1092759805[/unixtime]]
I realize the people on this forum are extremely anti-Fighter, but what I see at EnWorld rarely supports that stance. I would also say the wotc Min/Max board is also somewhat anti-Fighter.

It depends on how much you min/max basically to determine how anti-fighter you are. If you play a typical game where there isn't much min/maxing then the fighter looks OK. It's probably why it wasn't revised much by WotC, because they don't expect people to min/max to the extent some do.

I've played with plenty of wizard PCs who play wizards casually and aren't better than the fighters. Not everybody tries to actively rape the rules and that creates a big discrepancy.

ACtually, I would say it's easier to min-max a fighter, so a casual player can make an uber-fighter easier than an uber-caster.

This means the average table will have min-maxed fighters, and casual wizards . . . and be OK.

Basically, a Psychic Warrior is even more obvious in how it's "not a Cleric". As a Fighter, people will try to justify how one point of BAB every four levels and 1 hit point every level somehow justifies not having access to spells that... increase your BAB and give you extra hit points (and other bonuses). It's a kind of stupid argument, but you'll find people who will give it seemingly with sincerity. You'll find people who say that having your abilities work in an antimagic field is worth having them be less than 1/4th the size and non-customizable on a daily basis.

You'll really see people make that argument. I don't agree with it, but I've seen people make that attempt when justifying the Fighter. And you can't make that argument for a Psychic Warrior.

A Psychic Warrior is just a Cleric Archer except not as good. So if you ate enough wall candy that you thought that the Fighter was balanced against a Cleric Archer - you would instantly come to the conclusion that the Psychic Warrior is weaker than the Fighter.

---

Essentially, yes the Psychic Warrior is better than the Fighter. But no, that doesn't mean that there's any reason from a min/max standpoint to actually play one. It's not even like the Cleric uses different stats or anything - you fall into exactly the same category and fight the same way - and the Cleric gets more better buffs to layer on himself than the Psychic Warrior does and has more versatility if you want to do other things on a particular day.

-Username17

The_Hanged_Man at [unixtime wrote:1092775277[/unixtime]]ACtually, I would say it's easier to min-max a fighter, so a casual player can make an uber-fighter easier than an uber-caster.

This means the average table will have min-maxed fighters, and casual wizards . . . and be OK.

Yup. Casters pretty much have the hardcore built in. Its just that lots of people think fireball is the bee's knees.

The_Hanged_Man at [unixtime wrote:1092763193[/unixtime]]
That's exactly why I hardly ever go to the EnWorld board. Ever since they hounded Frank out, I've got little use for them.

Heh, I've had little use for Enworld, ever since the hounded ME out.

Apperantly, pointing out rude behavior and lack of moderating is actually very rude, and gets you bitched at by the admin. And when the admin tells you if you have any problems to e-mail him, he doesn't even reply. (Even if he replied to cuss at me, I'd get over it. Plain out ignoring me is uncalled for.)

Plus, I got tired of people ignoring me when I proved them wrong. At least the people on Wizards.com tend to listen to you. Well, some of them do anyway, I know quite a few that don't.

Back on topic:

Fighter versus anything is pretty one sided. A while back, I made an argument for bards being better than psychiic warriors. I don't know if I beleive it or not, but it was the most plausable argument I could think of against the "3.5 Psywarr is too powerful!" backlash.

I was probably very wrong, but it's still fun to make up stuff and act like you know what you're talking about. I think I actually convinced a few people that I was right too.

Count_Arioch_the_28th at [unixtime wrote:1092834575[/unixtime]]
Fighter versus anything is pretty one sided. A while back, I made an argument for bards being better than psychiic warriors. I don't know if I beleive it or not, but it was the most plausable argument I could think of against the "3.5 Psywarr is too powerful!" backlash.

When the XPH first came out and I looked at the "how good is the psywar" question, one of the answers I came up with is that its most-comparable class is, in fact, the bard.

They get the same BAB, the same general type of spell progression (six levels, rather than 4 or 9), the same learn it once, cast it forever mechanic.

The bard wins in saving throws, skill points, skill list, and class abilities. The psychic warrior gets an extra hit point per die on average, much better weapon and armor proficiencies, and some bonus feats.

That's not a perfect match, but it's reasonably close. If you value skills and the bard's class abilities more than bonus feats (which the extra weapons and armor essentially reduce to) ... then I can completely see how you'd make that argument. I think of the psychic warrior as basically a slightly more combat-oriented bard.

Of course, if you do the same comparison with the cleric it's just embarrassing. The psychic warrior has better weapon proficiencies, which doesn't even matter if you pick the War domain, some bonus feats, and ties or loses in literally everything else I could think of.

--d.

Psywarrior versus bard isnt' even close, becuase the psywarrior's powers are designed to do one thing: combat, and that's basically it. The bard's powers do almost everything except combat.

The psywarrior ends up as a buff machine with more buffs than the average cleric (because his last 1 min/level or longer as opposed to the 1 round/level cleric buffs). And while it's true he only gets 6 levels of spells, that doesn't matter because of augmentation. You raise a 1st or 2nd level power to the level of a 9th level spell by augmenting it.

I don't think a buff cleric is necessarily better at buffing than a psywarrior, unless you allow persistent spell, which I believe is a broken feat anyway.

RandomCasualty at [unixtime wrote:1092857684[/unixtime]]Psywarrior versus bard isnt' even close, becuase the psywarrior's powers are designed to do one thing: combat, and that's basically it. The bard's powers do almost everything except combat.

The bard and the psywar fill different roles. But they each fill their role about equally well: by which I mean, neither one of them is as good as just picking a better class.

I disagree somewhat about augmenting; an augmented 6th level power is probably not as good as a 9th level power, although it may do equal dice of damage or have an equal duration or whatever. But it depends strongly on which powers you pick for comparison, so.

--d.

Well, the thing is that a lot of powers we just don't have comparisons for. Like force screen for instance or upgraded inertial armor. They're upgraded versions of shield and mage armor, but unfortunately those spells really don't exist, so we don't know what level they would be. The levels in the XPH seem pretty reasonable though.

In either case, the psywarrior's most powerful spells happen to be his lower level ones, so the fact that he caps out at 6th level spells just doesn't mean much, like it does for the bard. You're still going to be using your 1st and 2nd level powers on a regular basis with augmentation, probably more so than your 6th levels.

But a PsyWarr's PP per day blow donkeys. If you are augmenting your powers, you're out in 3 rounds or so. To do that, a psion needs to manifest Schism and Fission to accomplish the same thing, except he's throwing out (if I'm correct) 3 powers per round.

I don't know about you, but if I'm going to run out of power points in a few rounds, I'm at least going to make sure a lot of things die.

A Psychic Warrior's dependence on "buffing rounds" is easily met if he has a wizard companion who casts battlefield control or delay spells (i.e. Solid Fog, Web). This gives the PsyWarr and the rest of the party time to buff-up and reposition themselves to put the maximum smack on the opposition.

Besides, battl4efield control spells are often the most efficient and party-friendly spells for a wizard to cast.

A Psychic Warrior's dependence on "buffing rounds" is easily met if he has a wizard companion who casts battlefield control or delay spells (i.e. Solid Fog, Web). This gives the PsyWarr and the rest of the party time to buff-up and reposition themselves to put the maximum smack on the opposition.

If I had the benefit of a few free rounds, I would not waste them on buffing.

That's one of the reasons why the cleric archer is so successful, is because they can do their ass-kicking RIGHT THEN AND THERE. If they had to wait a few rounds to get their mojo up, they might as well be using them to cast their sweet selection of killin' spells.

You apparently are not familiar with good PsyWarr builds. They don't need a few rounds. They either need 1 round, or they can swift action or advance-buff (with 10 minutes or 1 hour per level powers) and be just fine.

Lago_AM3P at [unixtime wrote:1093107602[/unixtime]]
If I had the benefit of a few free rounds, I would not waste them on buffing.

That's one of the reasons why the cleric archer is so successful, is because they can do their ass-kicking RIGHT THEN AND THERE. If they had to wait a few rounds to get their mojo up, they might as well be using them to cast their sweet selection of killin' spells.

Well, you're assuming a high level cleric with persistent spell and divine metamagic, which isn't always a given.

I don't find the psywarrior's power up time to be any worse than the cleric's until the very later levels when persistent spell starts to dominate the game (then again IMO persistent spell is a broken concept for that very reason).

But everything the cleric can do buff wise, the psywarrior can pretty much do too. He's got quicken, many of his buffs can be augmented into swift actions and he's actually got more useful buffs than a cleric does. Looking down the psywarrior list, they're practically buff machines.

I haven't read the psionics crap, nor will I ever care to, so I can't (won't) give a counter-argument.

I guess you're right. Or something.

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthrea ... r][br]This thread at EnWorld is all about the Psychic Warrior vs. Fighter debate. I'd be curious to see who you think is the better class via the min-maxing efforts put forth by those who participated in the contest.