Modifying Phrenic to LA +1

[0nimaru]

Forenote: In the campaign I'm starting, the players asked to each start with an LA of +1. One player wanted to be human for RP purposes, and I want to avoid simply giving him an extra level to make up for it since Buyoff won't be an option. He is a Psionic Ardent, and Phrenic interested him the most of all the available templates.


My initial impression from looking at Phrenic and attempting to adjust it to LA +1 is to drop the Psi-resistance and reduce the Ability bonuses to +2 Int, +2 Wis. I didn't want to tamper with the Psi-likes as they seem to be the whole point of the template, but I haven't read every Power in depth yet either.

Has anybody done this in the past or have any suggestions?

P.S. I recognize that the template suggests not applying it to people naturally developing Psi-powers. The group is choosing to ignore this.

[Hirax]

Your suggestion seems reasonable, especially when compared to lesser aasimars and tieflings.

[Tokuhara]

Forenote: In the campaign I'm starting, the players asked to each start with an LA of +1. One player wanted to be human for RP purposes, and I want to avoid simply giving him an extra level to make up for it since Buyoff won't be an option. He is a Psionic Ardent, and Phrenic interested him the most of all the available templates.


My initial impression from looking at Phrenic and attempting to adjust it to LA +1 is to drop the Psi-resistance and reduce the Ability bonuses to +2 Int, +2 Wis. I didn't want to tamper with the Psi-likes as they seem to be the whole point of the template, but I haven't read every Power in depth yet either.

Has anybody done this in the past or have any suggestions?

P.S. I recognize that the template suggests not applying it to people naturally developing Psi-powers. The group is choosing to ignore this.

I say check out Quor-bred and take things from that and mash things with Pherenic. It should give you the approximate power level you desire

[tyckspoon]

Personally, the psi-likes alone would be almost worth the +2; the stat buffs and power resistance seal the value, but they're basically side-effects of some pretty sweet abilities. And that's mostly because unlike most templates, Phrenic's psi-likes actually scale to your level, so you never really lose the value of the LA unlike most templates that rapidly lose impact compared to class levels and good use of wealth. (They scale two ways, even- you get higher-level psi-likes as you level, and psi-likes are always augmented equal to your HD, so they can be used like a full manifester nova'ing off all the time.)

Edit: If I wanted to reduce Phrenic to LA +1, I'd limit the psi-likes. Not remove them, because they are indeed the point of the template, but do something like reduce uses on the 3/day ones and/or put a set manifester level on them. Or, ideally, figure out some mechanism that lets them scale to a point, so you don't have your manifester (eventually) effectively getting 10 extra and really pretty useful level 9 manifestations from his template, but still putting enough power in them so they're worth considering for his actions.

[0nimaru]

I can see the issue there. I liked the idea that the LA wasn't so front-loaded, but since I'm not allowing buyoff this might scale him better than the other players.

Would it make a big difference if I made them Bonus Powers Known rather than free Psi-likes?

[tyckspoon]

Would it make a big difference if I made them Bonus Powers Known rather than free Psi-likes?

..yes, actually, that sounds like a pretty good solution. Puts them into his normal resource-management scheme, but it's still a definite plus.