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Arctura42
2010-08-13, 05:15 PM
In the description it says: "Unlike a psion, an erudite
is limited to manifesting a certain number of unique
psionic powers of each level per day..."

I take this to mean exactly what it says - that the number in the chart under Unique Powers/Day is meant to say Unique Powers/Day for every spell level that you know spells in. Is this correct, or is it only powers/day? Does that mean if I decide to cast 11 different level 1 spells at level 20 that I can't use anything else for that whole day? (Obviously if I knew that, I wouldn't do it, but that seems a bit odd . . .)

In addition, the Epic Progression for the Erudite says:
"An epic erudite's number of unique
powers per day continues to increase after 20th level, but at
a reduced rate. At 25th level and every five levels thereafter,
an erudite can manifest one additional unique power. Thus,
a 25th-level erudite can manifest twelve unique powers per
day, a 30th-level erudite can manifest thirteen unique powers
per day, and so on."

Now I take that to mean that its not per level per day, but just per day. Which is the correct interpretation? Being able to cast 99 different spells at level 20 is impressive, but not exactly possible, whereas only having 11 doesn't seem like much, especially when you can make them all level 1.

I believe that it is the latter, as that balances it with the Psion rather well, but the wording is weird in the original description. With the former description, the Erudite catches up to the Psion at level 7 at 16 powers to 15 powers, and from then on gets to cast far more. The psion, however, knows only his 3-4 powers of every level, and thus is not only stuck with those, but ends up being able to cast fewer spells of every level in that case, whereas the Psion is only limited by the powers he can learn - even though that same process requires that he spend the rest of the day not manifesting anything and in meditation, whilst spending a bit of xp . . . not to mention the actual cost of getting the power out of someone.

Help me out. What's the right interpretation?

FMArthur
2010-08-14, 12:24 AM
In the description it says: "Unlike a psion, an erudite
is limited to manifesting a certain number of unique
psionic powers of each level per day..."

I take this to mean exactly what it says - that the number in the chart under Unique Powers/Day is meant to say Unique Powers/Day for every spell level that you know spells in. Is this correct, or is it only powers/day? Does that mean if I decide to cast 11 different level 1 spells at level 20 that I can't use anything else for that whole day? (Obviously if I knew that, I wouldn't do it, but that seems a bit odd . . .)

In addition, the Epic Progression for the Erudite says:
"An epic erudite's number of unique
powers per day continues to increase after 20th level, but at
a reduced rate. At 25th level and every five levels thereafter,
an erudite can manifest one additional unique power. Thus,
a 25th-level erudite can manifest twelve unique powers per
day, a 30th-level erudite can manifest thirteen unique powers
per day, and so on."

Now I take that to mean that its not per level per day, but just per day. Which is the correct interpretation? Being able to cast 99 different spells at level 20 is impressive, but not exactly possible, whereas only having 11 doesn't seem like much, especially when you can make them all level 1.

I believe that it is the latter, as that balances it with the Psion rather well, but the wording is weird in the original description. With the former description, the Erudite catches up to the Psion at level 7 at 16 powers to 15 powers, and from then on gets to cast far more. The psion, however, knows only his 3-4 powers of every level, and thus is not only stuck with those, but ends up being able to cast fewer spells of every level in that case, whereas the Psion is only limited by the powers he can learn - even though that same process requires that he spend the rest of the day not manifesting anything and in meditation, whilst spending a bit of xp . . . not to mention the actual cost of getting the power out of someone.

Help me out. What's the right interpretation?

The "correct" interpretation, according to the rules, is that the text overrides the table and you get Unique Powers Per Power Level. But this is beyond stupid because of the Psion-Erudite balance that you brought up yourself. The way it was intended to be is what you see in the table: total Unique Powers Per Day. If I were to make it Unique Powers Per Power Level (which doesn't quite match up with Psionics' general aversion to discretely separated tiers of spells), it most certainly wouldn't scale as you level because it will already be doing so. The 'RAW' interpretation scales quadratically. As a DM there is no way you should ever let Erudites run their precise RAW; as a player you should avoid the obviously broken interpretation as a matter of fairness.