Need help understanding power points

[drakoonity]

So I'm trying to understand the whole power points thing with the psychic warrior, I'm having trouble with the powers known, power points/day, and the max power level known.

[AmberVael]

Since you weren't very specific about the difficulty you're having, I'm going to give a broad, very basic overview of each topic, making no assumptions about what you already know. Hopefully something in here will help.


For the Psychic Warrior, you can only use a certain set of powers from the larger list of powers within the Psychic Warrior set. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powerList.htm#psychicWarriorPowers) The powers you can use are represented by your powers known, which are gained when you level up, and cannot normally be changed. The Psychic Warrior table lists the total number of powers you know at each level.
So, if you break it down, the Psychic Warrior gains one power from the larger list each time he levels up.


Now, the Maximum Power Level Known determines what levels of power you can select. If you look at the power list that the Psychic Warrior can select from, it is separated into six levels. At first (at class levels 1, 2 and 3), the Psychic Warrior can only add 1st level powers to his powers known list. Once he reaches class level 4 though, he can select either 1st level powers, or 2nd level powers when he learns a new power. When he reaches class level 7, he can choose 1st, 2nd, or 3rd level powers. And so on.


Power points determine how much the Psychic Warrior can use any of the powers that he knows, and the number you see on the Psychic Warrior table is the total number of power points he has at each level (plus any bonus points he gains from Wisdom). Each Power lists the number of points spent when you use it- once you've used all your points, you have to rest to regain them.

[Raendyn]

I'm having trouble with the powers known,power points/day, and the max power level known.

It's not too difficult. Reading the paragraphs Power Known and Max Power Level Known, carefully, should solves your problems.

But I will explain them too.

Powers known: At lvl 1 you pick a 1st lvl power and you can cast it spontaneously, much like a Sorceror. Furthermore, every time you gain a new level, you can pick any power from your list up to the Max power lvl known.

So at first 3 lvls you can pick one 1st lvl power/lvl.
at lvsl 4-6 you can pick either a 1st or 2nd lvl power /lvl.
at lvls 7-9 you can pick any power of 1st, 2nd or 3rd lvl and so forth...

These powers must come from your list, the Phychic Warrior powers list at pages 73-75 of EPH, and pages 76-78 on Complete Psionics.(there are some on other books too, Check this out http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19571554/Index:_3.5_Psionics_Outside_the_XPH.

Now about the Power Points/day(PP).
Some powers are just casted and you dont have to worry much about them and Power points beyond their original cost.(Like Bite of the wolf at page 80 of EPH)
But, most powers don't do something based on your Manifester level(ML). They work based on how many PP you send while manifesting them.
For example Biofeedback Power on page 80, is a 1st lvl Psychic Warrior power that gives you Damage reduction 2/-. That is if you cast the base power with no augment, and this costs ONE PP. Now, you can choose to spend more PP to increase the power's effect, for ever 3 PP beyond the original cost you gain an extra +1 damage reduction.

Note that, if a power has multiple different augmentation options you have to spend PP seperately for each of them.

The original cost of powers is (Powerlvl x 2)-1.

Now based on these, you have a total PP per day , this pool includes PP/day as shown on the psychic warrior tab + bonus powerpoints from your Wisdom as shown on page 18 of EPH. Whenever you manifest a power you subtrackt the PP sent from the total pool, you can continue manifesting untill you run out of PP.

The hole thing is that you cant spent more PP that your ML! So, if u wanna Augment Biofeedback on the above mentioned example, you must posses a Manifester LvL of at least 4(1 forn the original cost of this 1st lvl power +3 for the Augment). As you should have noticed in psionics most powers have no difference when casted with the same PP cost but with different ML. A lvl one Psychic warrior spending a single PP to bcast Biofeedback will have the same effect as a lvl 20 Psychic warrior casting the same power with the same cost would have.(I repeat, Most of them , not all).

Hope this helps

[Slipperychicken]

Power points are like mana. Whenever you use a psionic power, it depletes some of your power points, and you only recover them when you rest. If you hit zero power points, you can't manifest powers any more until you rest or gain more power points.


Also remember: Whenever you use a power, you can only spend power points on it up to your manifester level.

For example, a seventh level Psion manifesting Energy Burst may spend anywhere from 5 (the minimum required) to 7 (his manifester level). He may only spend a maximum of 7 power points per casting, even if he has more power points than that available.

[drakoonity]

Thank you all for the help, this has helped a lot and is a lot more clear to me :).