Psionics and new powers

Discuss any general matters related to CoPaP here!
Apandapion
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Post by Apandapion »

Actually, I seem to have been mistaken. Psions can only use some of thier powers while shapechanged. I'm not clear on which ones...

Now, I'm just confused.
Fuzz
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Post by Fuzz »

There are plenty of builds that are imbalanced and unfair. Fighter/Cleric is the age old one. Paladin/Sorceror is another. So... Monk/Psion has one trick that's pretty good.

... what's your point? D&D was designed in a certain way, and class balance was not what they had in mind. CoPaP's goal, last I checked, was to bring as accurate an online representation of the D&D rules as possible to the CRPG format. This is why classes like Paladins had Detect Evil added in, and Spellhooking was even bothered with in the first place.

Discuss balance and imbalance until you're blue in the face... that's not the point of this discussion, so leave your angst somewhere else.


Back on topic, I think more psionic powers would only be a benefit. As Kai'Ral stated, variety is the spice of life. While my own psion won't be using any of the new powers, I still think they're a valuable addition, since self-serving bias is not the basis for productive discussion. Remember that.
Krator
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Post by Krator »

Back on topic (*slaps balance idiots with an RP stick*)

Some power ideas below, to make some CvC with psionics more interesting, instead of the contact+hallucinate one-trick pony, and to make a fight with high will save creatures more interesting by screwing their powers, so that both are screwed. Also, these powers are only really good at epic levels.

Chaos Storm:
Discipline: Telepathy
Power score: Wis - 2
Cost: 20 (?)
Effect: Dispel Magic on Target
Duration: Instant
Save: None
As Dispel Magic spell. The psionicist assaults the victim with a lot of strange thoughts, causing him to drop any spells that require concentration to maintain. Would be cool if it was possible to make it work against psionics.

Chaos Mind:
Discipline: Metapsionics or Telepathy
Power score: Wis - 5
Cost: 8 (?)
Effect: -2 Concentration/level for target, no cap, negative possible.
Duration: 1 turn + 1 round/level
Save: Will vs Mind Spells, with a high base (14?)
Concentration penalty for target, is not a hostile power, but useable in psionic combat. In Character, this would mean that you send some very chaotic/strange images to the target, making him unable to concentrate. Useful against mages and multiclass psionics.

Memory Fade:
Discipline: Telepathy
Power score: Wis - 5
Cost: 25 (?)
Effect: 1 drained level/5(?) levels; 10% spell failure (all)/7 levels;
Duration: 1 round/2 levels
Save: None
A power that is not really 'deadly' against creatures of the same level as the psionicist, but just that little thing you need to annoy the enemy spellcaster, or take away some of the fighter's power. Multiple Memory Fades don't stack. In Character, this power locks away some of the target's memory. (Thanks to Drakuul for the inspiration) Not useable for psionic combat.

Memory Block:
Discipline: Telepathy
Power score: Wis - 10;
Cost: 100 (?)
Effect: 40% Spell Failure + 5%/ 2 levels; 1d10 drained levels + 1/ 2 Levels
Duration: 4 rounds + 1 round per psionicist level over 20
Save: Will vs Mind Spells
More powerful version of Memory Fade with a save. Quite uber, but only really effective over level 20 psionicist. ICly, this locks away all memories, for a short time. Doesn't stack with itself or with Memory Fade.
Fuzz
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Post by Fuzz »

The powers that MrNathan added are all actually based on 2nd Edition Psionics powers. Try to stick to powers that are in that or supplemental books.
Khaelindra
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Post by Khaelindra »

I am happy with the Psion-versatility as it is, but of course will always welcome new powers that give more of the spice called variation to the class. As monk-psion i can safely say i would be benefitting in theory from the shapechange, but my druid hardly ever uses her shapechange spell because the creatures just are so out of place in a friendly gathering, so the same would apply here. If you still want to balance it, make it a cheap round/level power as suggested earlier, or prohibit CON-based skilled in shapechanged form as it's an alien body, or whatever. Plenty of alternatives to be found. Just think along constructively.

i want to see new powers if... there are new feats for fighters barbarians rangers and bards, more songs for bard and spells for all spellcasters...
As a druid, who has seen all other classes get nifty upgrades like militant boni, cool gate-spells and spellhooking while the druid has had nothing whatsoever and it wasn't the most impressive class to begin with, i'd have to say a remark like this is really a sad show of a narrow mind. Back to our regular schedule of giving constructive comments please. :evil:
Druid523
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Post by Druid523 »

*bump*

The new powers will definitely be a welcome addition. With such a limited selection to choose from currently, all higher-level psionicists are just going to be copies of each other having all the same powers. At least with a lot of new powers added into the mix, there will be some diversity among the different psionicist characters.
When things are at their worst...smile.
Arkonswrath
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Post by Arkonswrath »

Diversity comes from the RP :D
Druid523
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Post by Druid523 »

Ack! I can't even escape you in this forum! :P

Well, I'd say diversity comes in part from the RP. But when you've got 20 or so psionicists all with the same powers (due to a lack of selection), it gets kind of monotonous. People studying to become doctors all eventually earn an M.D. degree...but they all have specialties (and a few dabble in every specialty to become family physicians). To bring it back to an in-game viewpoint, mages can specialize in a certain school of magic (though even this could kind of use some work in being a bit more diversified).
With more psionicists powers to choose from, psionicists won't all be from the same cookie-cutter and can diversify through not only their RP but also through their in-game powers and abilities.
When things are at their worst...smile.
Snow
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Post by Snow »

All mages, clerics, druids and bards get the same spells too :)
Arkonswrath
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Post by Arkonswrath »

You all also have to realize.. When 2nd AD Psionics were around, there weren't that many powers to choose from.

To put in a bunch of new powers would require the builders to dig into 3.5 Psionic rules. If we do that, then we would, by necessity, need to bring the rest of psionic powers up to 3.5.

Personally, I would prefer this because 3.5 Psionics are the most balance form out there, but it would require a lot of work.
Loki70
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Post by Loki70 »

Actually, 3.5 is the most lopsided form of psionics I have seen. But if you want to do it, by all means. That would make my monk 3 times as powerful, at least, since most of the stuff in there is very combat specific (Duo-dimensional Hand and several others are just made for monks). Personally, I think that there are enough powers that haven't been introduced that were in Dark Sun psionics to fill the void. some of the metamagic ones aren't there, like psychic surgery, and some of the uber ones are left out (don't ask, I haven't had the book in a long time). The 3.5 system works on some rather flakey principles (psions are mental masters, so what does their strength have to do with anything), and it works well for PnP, but it wouldn't hold up so good on NWN. That and it's a coding nightmare, from all I have heard.
Druid523
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Post by Druid523 »

Arkonswrath wrote: Personally, I would prefer this because 3.5 Psionics are the most balance form out there, but it would require a lot of work.
Ditto! It seems a bit odd that one would try to implement 2E psionics in a 3E computer game (Neverwinter Nights). So before anyone starts to volunteer to make a 3.5 Edition Psionics hak...would the CoPaP leaders be in favor of switching to such a system?
When things are at their worst...smile.
Apandapion
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Post by Apandapion »

Druid523 wrote:
Arkonswrath wrote: Personally, I would prefer this because 3.5 Psionics are the most balance form out there, but it would require a lot of work.
Ditto! It seems a bit odd that one would try to implement 2E psionics in a 3E computer game (Neverwinter Nights). So before anyone starts to volunteer to make a 3.5 Edition Psionics hak...would the CoPaP leaders be in favor of switching to such a system?
Given the difficulties in refitting every psionic character in existance, such a system would probably have to be in addition to instead of a replacement for the existing psionic system. So then the question is "does CoPaP need two psionic systems?" and the answer is probably no. But it's probably an irrelevant question - if someone were going to develop 3.5 psionics for NWN they would have done it already.
Loki70
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Post by Loki70 »

Reason no one has done this is because they all have to be coded as spells. Coding one new spell is a pain in the ass. Coding several dozen of them is a nightmare. That and the 3.5 system couldn't use existing spell scripts, since they all work differently than normal spells. That was why they went with the feat system in the first place.
Arkonswrath
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Post by Arkonswrath »

Actually, everything can still be done via feats. The only differences that would really need to exist for this system to go 3.5(ish) would be that they be more level dependent.

Keep in mind that in 3.5, Psionics are a full blown Class, were as with earlier versions, psionics were an addition to a normal PC. The changeover itself wouldn't be that difficult as existing powers would only need some minor alterations to make them more 3.5 compliant (IE Danger Sense would not prevent sneak attacks, but would instead give you +4 to find traps and a +4 to avoiding them. DCs would need to be altered to match a 3.5 way of dealing with them, such as one system that can be used is d20 + power level + ability modifier = DC, etc.)

As far as making the Psionics are the Same system, which is an option in PnP that makes dealing with psionic powers similar to dealing with normal spells, it is a minor script change to make psionic powers dispellable, respect spell resistance, etc. Right now, Psionic powers are obtained via a feat which calls on a script. That script holds all of the power's information in regards to how the power is cast and treated by the system. Some of these have already been altered on Hala to better match the Hala setting so I can attest to the fact that it's not that hard to change a few things in the system to make them closer to a 3.0/3.5 mesh. A complete overhaul, however, would be much more time consuming.

Anyway, I'm not suggesting that we switch to this type of system. Like I said, it would require a lot of work, and most copap worlds have a lot of other things going on that are much higher up on the scale of importance right now.
Loki70
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Post by Loki70 »

Psionics dispellable = bad idea. Mage casts greater dispel while fully buffed. All the psion's buffs go away, he has no retaliation. Unless you put in apapsi and catapsi (psi versions of dispel) and make them comparable to Greater dispel (since there is only one) and make them effect magic as well, it would make the class nearly unplayable, as any mage with Lesser Dispel can strip a psion of all protections. On Avlis we've been told a few times that they were different. Change the scripts so that protections work for psionics (Elemental Protection vs. Summon Elemental Energy). But don't give every mage and monk the ability to walk all over a psion.

The other thing that would change would be the removal of power checks. In 3.0 there aren't any. they work just like spells. And you would have to strip every existing character of his levels, and allow them to retake them, as there are no prerequisite powers, so they would be allowed to drop the preliminary powers that they don't use. Also there is the fact that some powers are just not there.
Last edited by Loki70 on Tue Jan 17, 2006 8:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Nob
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Post by Nob »

Well if you wanna go with dropping powerchecks, psionic powers would have to be done through a progression table per PnP if you wanna go with 3rd Ed rules, so that the strength of your known powers goes up with psi levels. (thus, no more 1-2 level psions with D-Door, which come to think of it, would be kinda nice...)
Loki70
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Post by Loki70 »

You would get Demensional Slide (which is the equivalent of Dimension Door) at sixth level, maybe. If you took the right one of the six different psi classes. Which would mean that you should take all the existing psi characters and give them the option of either making the change, locking the class, or delevelling them and relevelling them in a different class. I know that my psi's powers are all over the place under the 3.0 rules, so I would most likely dump the psi all together and take cleric levels. It's just easier. And less people bitch about clerics being overpowered
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