Infinite loops?

[Oko and Qailee]

So, I'm a relatively new DM running a PbP campaign. I know quite a bit of the rules and have read most of the books.

One of my players essentially took 5 turns at once, uber buffed himself as a psionic (shaper), and then basically one shot (with just his summons) all of the BBEG's hencmen (all CR20, he was ECL15).

He did this using manifest twin synchronity and a bunch of other stuff.

I don't know. I'm really angry and upset. I made this fight way beyond the parties ECL and was going to balance it via enemies using specific not OP tactic, this has always worked before.

I guess I'm just frustrated and ranting, I still haven't posted my reply to what happens, but it's pretty obvious, before the CR20 enemies can even act the fight is going to be over.

I don't understand, how psions aren't t0. Do clerics and druids have some cheese I'm not aware of that lets them take 5 turns at once at level 15? Because apparently a psionic can do it at a whim with his spells whenever he feels like it.

and I tried talking to this player, I had to design an encounter previously to specifically kill another one of his characters I was having trouble with, and now this. I just don't know anymore. What would you guys do in this case?



/rant

thanks for your time

[MilesTiden]

So, I'm a relatively new DM running a PbP campaign. I know quite a bit of the rules and have read most of the books.

One of my players essentially took 5 turns at once, uber buffed himself as a psionic (shaper), and then basically one shot (with just his summons) all of the BBEG's hencmen (all CR20, he was ECL15).

He did this using manifest twin synchronity and a bunch of other stuff.

I don't know. I'm really angry and upset. I made this fight way beyond the parties ECL and was going to balance it via enemies using specific not OP tactic, this has always worked before.

I guess I'm just frustrated and ranting, I still haven't posted my reply to what happens, but it's pretty obvious, before the CR20 enemies can even act the fight is going to be over.

I don't understand, how psions aren't t0. Do clerics and druids have some cheese I'm not aware of that lets them take 5 turns at once at level 15? Because apparently a psionic can do it at a whim with his spells whenever he feels like it.

and I tried talking to this player, I had to design an encounter previously to specifically kill another one of his characters I was having trouble with, and now this. I just don't know anymore. What would you guys do in this case?

Because I'm leaning on ignoring my "the BBEG hits the party just enough to threaten but not kill the rule" to finally cheesing just like this player and killing them all. I don't even care how made anyone will be anymore.

/rant

thanks for your time

I think that's your problem right there. That's like, definitely not cool. If you have a problem with the level of optimization a player is playing at, then ask them to tone it down out of character. Killing their character in game through bullcrap is just going to make it worse. So much worse.

[Arkturas]

Answer this as honestly as you can. Whose side are you on. The BBEG, or the players?

[Devronq]

The players optimization should never exceed the DMs. Dont allow high level optimization or combos or all that stuff. Rocket tag is not a fun game to play and IMO nether is high OP games unless your into that kinda thing and everyone is doing it.

[Big Fau]

He did this using manifest twin synchronity and a bunch of other stuff.


Synchronicity (or however that power is spelled) is widely agreed to be stupidly overpowered (the player may have also manifested Affinity Field, but I don't know from your post).

[Oko and Qailee]

I think that's your problem right there. That's like, definitely not cool. If you have a problem with the level of optimization a player is playing at, then ask them to tone it down out of character. Killing their character in game through bullcrap is just going to make it worse. So much worse.

I asked him several times, I talked to him about it personally after every single encounter that he needed to tone it down.

After I killed his character I talked to him again and he said that he understood and he promised his next character wouldn't be as bad.

Instead it was worse.

[Oko and Qailee]

Answer this as honestly as you can. Whose side are you on. The BBEG, or the players?

The players, you're right. I'm not going to kill the party, I'm jsut frustrated and upset.

I can't make anything fun for the other players because of how things need to be scaled. Two players made similar complaints to me about him. One even clearly recognized that I was making enemies that were way too hard for them, and that the only reason they didn't insta die was because I was using sub optimal tactics for what the enemies could actually do.

[TuggyNE]

Linked Power and/or synchronicity can, I believe, safely be banned. With those gone, and pp-gain loops disbarred in general, psionics is relatively well-behaved, although it's generally better at blasting and action-economy manipulation than arcane magic.

[Oko and Qailee]

The problem is that now, to hurt his psionic at all, the suspension of disbelief needed to put any threat to his psionic without insta gibbing the rest of the party makes no sense.

t's like trying to find an enemy that is a threat to superman but not to hawkeye.

I won't instagib the party, but it will be laughable when the psionic takes so much as 1 hp of damage and the party is alive at all.

[Nettlekid]

It's like trying to find an enemy that is a threat to superman but not to hawkeye.


Kryptonite. Simple. In this analogy, send them against some anti-Psionic creatures that a Rogue or Ranger will have no trouble with. Have a Psion Killer bursting Dispel Psionics as a free action to remove buffs, or prepare it so that when he manifests Synchronicity, he "countermanifests." (I know that strictly speaking Su abilities can't be used to counter, but you're the DM, so you're allowed.) Have a Thought Eater drain his PP, or trick him into tapping the power of a Reverse Capacitor. Give any creature the ability to use Catapsi, or have something with a chamber of Quintessence (very fun for the party to play with after the thing is dead) which will hinder manifesting. And of course, there's always a bigger fish. A more powerful Psion (perhaps of another discipline) has been feeling the psychic radiation emitted by your Psion's overuse of PP (fluff it as the limit of ML PP per manifestation is a universal law, and limits around 2*ML PP expenditure per turn, or so. By detecting fluctuations in the psychic wavelength, local Psions can determine the strength of nearby psionics-users. Expending around five times the normal amount gave a falsely high reading) and this Psion is either impressed or threatened. In either case he'll think of your PC as getting in over his head, and might cut him down to size.

Play it as you will, but remember that there's no way one character can be better at literally everything than another. When it comes to winning the trust of the magic-hating shogun in a test of strength, the CW Samurai is stronger than the Batman Wizard or Clericzilla. Play to your other party member's strengths, and either actively limit or outright ignore the attempts of this obnoxious Psion to steal the spotlight.

[Debatra]

I generally don't advise this, but if you truly believe that; you'd best remember that as DM, your word is Law. We've all had to deal with That One Guy.

In any case, I'd recommend perusal of certain parts of this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76476) before doing anything Big.

[Oko and Qailee]

Kryptonite. Simple. In this analogy, send them against some anti-Psionic creatures that a Rogue or Ranger will have no trouble with. Have a Psion Killer bursting Dispel Psionics as a free action to remove buffs, or prepare it so that when he manifests Synchronicity, he "countermanifests." (I know that strictly speaking Su abilities can't be used to counter, but you're the DM, so you're allowed.) Have a Thought Eater drain his PP, or trick him into tapping the power of a Reverse Capacitor. Give any creature the ability to use Catapsi, or have something with a chamber of Quintessence (very fun for the party to play with after the thing is dead) which will hinder manifesting. And of course, there's always a bigger fish. A more powerful Psion (perhaps of another discipline) has been feeling the psychic radiation emitted by your Psion's overuse of PP (fluff it as the limit of ML PP per manifestation is a universal law, and limits around 2*ML PP expenditure per turn, or so. By detecting fluctuations in the psychic wavelength, local Psions can determine the strength of nearby psionics-users. Expending around five times the normal amount gave a falsely high reading) and this Psion is either impressed or threatened. In either case he'll think of your PC as getting in over his head, and might cut him down to size.

Play it as you will, but remember that there's no way one character can be better at literally everything than another. When it comes to winning the trust of the magic-hating shogun in a test of strength, the CW Samurai is stronger than the Batman Wizard or Clericzilla. Play to your other party member's strengths, and either actively limit or outright ignore the attempts of this obnoxious Psion to steal the spotlight.

On the superman analogy, there are incarnations of superman where he is immune to kryptonite. ANyway that's irrelevant.

Al the Psionic stuff is neat, but the BBEG fight has already been made and is going, and I, due to my fundamental lack of understanding psionics, didn't put any psonics in there.

He just surprised me with a wall of "I automatically won"

[Nettlekid]

On the superman analogy, there are incarnations of superman where he is immune to kryptonite. ANyway that's irrelevant.

Al the Psionic stuff is neat, but the BBEG fight has already been made and is going, and I, due to my fundamental lack of understanding psionics, didn't put any psonics in there.

He just surprised me with a wall of "I automatically won"

WHAT? Like, Superman is so lame already, with his whole "I have all the powers and only this really niche weakness" and they got rid of that in some places? I hate Superman.

How exactly did he auto-win? Five turns at once is pretty good, but what did he do with them? Just massive damage, or what?
Also, what was your final boss? Unless you plan to end the campaign, I'm sure there's a way to revive it, or make it an underling to a stronger boss, or something.

[Oko and Qailee]

WHAT? Like, Superman is so lame already, with his whole "I have all the powers and only this really niche weakness" and they got rid of that in some places? I hate Superman.

How exactly did he auto-win? Five turns at once is pretty good, but what did he do with them? Just massive damage, or what?
Also, what was your final boss? Unless you plan to end the campaign, I'm sure there's a way to revive it, or make it an underling to a stronger boss, or something.

Massive damage, even if any of the enemies survive they are grappled, tripped, and multiple other CC effects. He also made himself immune to essentially everything, gave himself ~500hp, a crazy AC, DR, SR, etc, etc, etc.

I don't understand a lot of it TBH. The boss was a massive Demon (:P), he has a lot of immunities, but it looks like he'll still be CC'ed if he survives the massive damage.

I think what I'm going to do is:
a) read through his post again and assess the damage, see if the BBEG can still put up a fight somehow, if yes, then continue. If the BBEG needs to significantly harm the players character (fairly ofc, enough to get some breathing room) in order to stop him then he will do so

b) If he can't, tell the player he just can't have 5 rounds at once

[TrollCapAmerica]

WHAT? Like, Superman is so lame already, with his whole "I have all the powers and only this really niche weakness" and they got rid of that in some places? I hate Superman.

How exactly did he auto-win? Five turns at once is pretty good, but what did he do with them? Just massive damage, or what?
Also, what was your final boss? Unless you plan to end the campaign, I'm sure there's a way to revive it, or make it an underling to a stronger boss, or something.

Read some good Superman stories especially if Alan Moore is writing and then you can drop the Superfriends picture you got of him.Maybe do the same with Aquaman too

Anyways it sounds like the DM is just inexperienced and has gone about the campaign in a problematic way.If you already made an encounter just to KILL an overpowered PC you can bet hes going try to design something even better next time to avenge his "defeat".Maybe you should try and track the cycle a little better and find out which of you may have started the arms race.Now one of you may have triggered it but the important part is to reach a middle ground where the game isnt completely derailed and everyone stops having fun.Communication and open honesty with each other is a must here

[Oko and Qailee]

Maybe you should try and track the cycle a little better and find out which of you may have started the arms race.


Communication and open honesty with each other is a must here

He made his first overpowered character before I was even DMing, he made it as part of a campaign we were all in and when the DM couldn't continue it I continued it for us (at everyones request). So I would say he started the cycle.

I asked him numerous times (communication) to watch his character, to note that every other player was completely overshadowed by him, etc.

I killed his character after a conversation I had with him where he explicitly said it was ok to do so since his character was such a problem and he said he had other characters he wanted to use anyway.

So I went ahead and killed him off in the only way I could do so. Now in hindsight it was still pathetic of me, but I'm 100% sure he didn't make this new character this OP out of spite.

The player is a optimizer at heart, I don't think he did it to spite me and I didn't kill his character to spite him, I did it in the hope that his next character wouldn't be as big of an issue.

I promise you guys, all the guesses about us having any sort of malice for each other is not accurate, I am mad about the current situation, I backed down on flat out killing people because I realized I was temporarily mad and being irrational and I don't want to be unfair to him as he is a close friend of mine.

[Deophaun]

You've talked with the player about this beforehand. You received assurances that this would not happen again. At this point, I think the next step is something like:

"LOL, very funny. That's what your old broken characters that you said you weren't going to build anymore would do.

Now, what's your real action?

PS. Synchronicity is banned"

[theIrkin]

You've talked with the player about this beforehand. You received assurances that this would not happen again. At this point, I think the next step is something like:

"LOL, very funny. That's what your old broken characters that you said you weren't going to build anymore would do.

Now, what's your real action?

PS. Synchronicity is banned"

Yes, all that. DM fiat to unbreak the game is sometimes necessary.

[sleepyphoenixx]

If he does that after repeated warnings from you to tone it down you should consider dropping him from the game imo.
He's had his chance and since he obviously has no qualms about breaking your game it's either that or watch as he makes the game unfun for you and the other players in his quest to "win D&D".

You could of course give him another chance and retcon the battle via dm fiat but, at least for me, that should be a last resort since it seriously disrupts immersion and it sounds like you'll have to do it again sooner or later as long as he keeps playing.

[LordBlades]

The players optimization should never exceed the DMs. Dont allow high level optimization or combos or all that stuff. Rocket tag is not a fun game to play and IMO nether is high OP games unless your into that kinda thing and everyone is doing it.

Same can be said for low OP, when characters are struggling to defeat at least 50% of 'level-appropriate' encounters pulled randomly from a MM without accounting for their specific strengths.

From my personal experience, any power level isn't very fun if not everybody is on-board with it.

[RedF0x11]

One of my players essentially took 5 turns at once, uber buffed himself as a psionic (shaper), and then basically one shot (with just his summons) all of the BBEG's hencmen (all CR20, he was ECL15).

He did this using manifest twin synchronity and a bunch of other stuff.
thanks for your time

step 1.) tell him you just need to calculate something quickly
step 2.) wait just long enough to give the illusion of calculations being done
step 3.) congratulate him on the amount of energy he created
step 4.) inform him of the wormhole he just generated, and the universe that he accidentally flung himself into (most likely into the void of this space which no psion would have the ability to survive (fix one thing and another kills you type stuff) :smallbiggrin:

If that isn't the way you want to handle it, then you can say magic and psionics are the same thing, and thus apply some of the buffs across, or your Uber Demon learns his lesson the first time, and has applied an enlarged Null Psionics Field to the battlefield in one way or another, which would make him look a little silly, and give the others time to shine.

[Douglas]

The post in question is here (http://rokk.forumotion.com/t202p255-caravans-of-dhan-ras-alternate-universe), correct? There are multiple potential rules issues with his uses of Anticipatory Strike and Synchronicity. I'd write up a full analysis and list for you, but I'm already past when I should have gone to sleep and it would take a while. I'll see about doing it tomorrow evening instead, if no one beats me to it.

Even if you let his post stand as is, one possible in character resolution would be to have a whole bunch of Quaruts (a variety of Inevitable from the Fiend Folio that punish abuses of time and space) teleport in, all specifically gunning for him and ignoring everyone else.

I would say handle it out of character, but it sounds like you've already tried that and it didn't work. You might end up just having to remove him from the game.

[erikun]

The post in question is here (http://rokk.forumotion.com/t202p255-caravans-of-dhan-ras-alternate-universe), correct? There are multiple potential rules issues with his uses of Anticipatory Strike and Synchronicity. I'd write up a full analysis and list for you, but I'm already past when I should have gone to sleep and it would take a while. I'll see about doing it tomorrow evening instead, if no one beats me to it.
If this is the post in question, then there are... a number of problems with what he's doing. The biggest two that I can see involve manifesting Anticipatory Strike as a swift action during his turn (the power grants you the actions now rather than waiting for your turn, and if it is your turn now, would technically not do anything) and assuming that Anticipatory Strike grants you a new swift action (it most specifically does not). I'm sure that there are a number of other problems with the situation - assuming you can pay off the Anticipatory Strike "debt" wth Temporal Acceleration stands out - but I haven't gone over everything as of yet.

[Crake]

Might want to also check to see if he has the power points to achieve all that, unless he's also adding in some way of recharging powerpoints somewhere along the line?

[Killer Angel]

Answer this as honestly as you can. Whose side are you on. The BBEG, or the players?

The game.
If a player plays OP, beyond the DM's skills, or uses TO tricks, and refuse to tone it down even when asked, that player is ruining the game also to the other players.

[Traab]

Massive damage, even if any of the enemies survive they are grappled, tripped, and multiple other CC effects. He also made himself immune to essentially everything, gave himself ~500hp, a crazy AC, DR, SR, etc, etc, etc.

I don't understand a lot of it TBH. The boss was a massive Demon (:P), he has a lot of immunities, but it looks like he'll still be CC'ed if he survives the massive damage.

I think what I'm going to do is:
a) read through his post again and assess the damage, see if the BBEG can still put up a fight somehow, if yes, then continue. If the BBEG needs to significantly harm the players character (fairly ofc, enough to get some breathing room) in order to stop him then he will do so

b) If he can't, tell the player he just can't have 5 rounds at once

Thats the problem imo. If you dont understand how the class works, you might not want to let him play it. If you dont get it, how will you know when he is slipping major cheese past you? Also, if he isnt doing this to be an ass on purpose, try explaining it this way. "Look, all im asking is that, before you roll your next character, you ask yourself these questions.

1) Can it run this adventure solo?
2) Can it one shot encounters that are supposed to be a few CR above the entire party?
3) Is it going to make it pointless for anyone else to even be playing the game?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, roll something else, ask these questions again, then keep rerolling till you stop this."

Also, you might want to restrict classes in the next campaign to those you are familiar with. That way he wont bust out some sort of psychotic beholder mage abomination with a dozen template stacks that could make punpun give up in utter disgust because he was able to slip past a dozen things no dm who understands those options would ever allow.

[Crake]

Even if you let his post stand as is, one possible in character resolution would be to have a whole bunch of Quaruts (a variety of Inevitable from the Fiend Folio that punish abuses of time and space) teleport in, all specifically gunning for him and ignoring everyone else.

I'm actually really liking this solution, its a creative way to bring the character in line using in game means.

[gooddragon1]

"First, synchronicity is now banned. Second, those were illusions. The real ones...<fill in as needed>".

Also, seriously restrict bestow power (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/bestowPower.htm). If he tries to recharge with it or tries to get infinite power points say the following:
Recharge-The excess energy dissipates due to a conflict of power ownership and no power points are gained or lost.
Infinite power points-You feel an infinite amount of psionic power coursing through your veins. Unfortunately your body can't handle it and you detonate.

RAW? No. But you're the DM and he know he done wrong.

The way to recharge:

Earth power (cost -1)
Torc of power preservation (cost -1)
Pay 3-2=1 power points to gain 2

The way to infinity:

Fission
Affinity field (duplicate manifests this too)
Bestow power on duplicate (the affinity fields loop this effect infinitely)

Note that psions can go nova (spend max cap power points each round) in a boss fight. To prevent them from doing this every fight you need to make them hesitant to do so: Illusions, small but threatening earlier combats, etc.

[Traab]

"First, synchronicity is now banned. Second, those were illusions. The real ones...<fill in as needed>".

Also, seriously restrict bestow power (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/bestowPower.htm). If he tries to recharge with it or tries to get infinite power points say the following:
Recharge-The excess energy dissipates due to a conflict of power ownership and no power points are gained or lost.
Infinite power points-You feel an infinite amount of psionic power coursing through your veins. Unfortunately your body can't handle it and you detonate.

RAW? No. But you're the DM and he know he done wrong.

The way to recharge:

Earth power (cost -1)
Torc of power preservation (cost -1)
Pay 3-2=1 power points to gain 2

The way to infinity:

Fission
Affinity field (duplicate manifests this too)
Bestow power on duplicate (the affinity fields loop this effect infinitely)

Note that psions can go nova (spend max cap power points each round) in a boss fight. To prevent them from doing this every fight you need to make them hesitant to do so: Illusions, small but threatening earlier combats, etc.

You know, this brings to mind another rule 0 that can be used as a new dm. "Just to let you know ahead of time, I am not fully conversant in what your class can do, if it gets out of hand, I reserve the right to nerf the skill(s) that caused the imbalance retroactively. Just keep that in mind the next time you feel an urge to one shot a freaking boss monster."

[Mithril Leaf]

Note, I'm going to be playing Devil's Advocate here, so bear with me.

So your big boss was intended to be something interesting and powerful. You however either overestimated it, or underestimated the player. Due to an inherent part of the system, the player was able to go nova and take out the big boss nearly immediately. Why shouldn't he be able to do that when the rules totally okay it, and you approved those rules? The player did the optimization, why should he play characters under their strengths?

Devil's Advocate over. I'd personally tell him to go find another game where the optimization level is higher than what you provide. Going Nova with a bunch of summons for a boss is very much in the realm of Practical Optimization. He needs a game where everything is geared towards that power level.

[Fouredged Sword]

I like to let players build what they want.

I also like to control my games so that story and flavor issues fit together.

I found the solution is to ask players "What does your character DO, what is his ROLE, and how do you PULL IT OFF?"

Then you listen to the player explain the tricks and tactics his character will employ, and if you hear something you don't like, your work together to resolve the issue so everyone is happy.

I have a E6 game going on right now that I decided to curb players from getting too big. It was because dragons play the villain role, and I wanted them to remain both big and evil. I felt having huge characters downplayed this, so I said to avoid it.

On the same note, a player built an ubercharger that I allowed, but knowing about it in advance let me plan encounters that restrict him enough so that he has fun, but doesn't overshadow the rest of the party.

[Oko and Qailee]

So your big boss was intended to be something interesting and powerful. You however either overestimated it, or underestimated the player. Due to an inherent part of the system, the player was able to go nova and take out the big boss nearly immediately. Why shouldn't he be able to do that when the rules totally okay it, and you approved those rules? The player did the optimization, why should he play characters under their strengths?
.

You're somewhat right and I don't want to flat out screw him over, which is why I haven't just said "no what you're saying doesn't work."

Assuming what he did works (something which several people in the thread said doesn't, so I'm going to check on it) then the rest of the party might as well drop their gear and walk away, because the only person needed for the fight to win is the Psion, everyone else is unimportant. And he still has a ton of stuff left from what I can gather via his char sheet.

[Traab]

Note, I'm going to be playing Devil's Advocate here, so bear with me.

So your big boss was intended to be something interesting and powerful. You however either overestimated it, or underestimated the player. Due to an inherent part of the system, the player was able to go nova and take out the big boss nearly immediately. Why shouldn't he be able to do that when the rules totally okay it, and you approved those rules? The player did the optimization, why should he play characters under their strengths?

Devil's Advocate over. I'd personally tell him to go find another game where the optimization level is higher than what you provide. Going Nova with a bunch of summons for a boss is very much in the realm of Practical Optimization. He needs a game where everything is geared towards that power level.

Its not like he understood what the guy could do with the character. He is a new dm and he didnt even realize something like this was possible.

[Oko and Qailee]

The post in question is here (http://rokk.forumotion.com/t202p255-caravans-of-dhan-ras-alternate-universe), correct? .

Yes, yes it is.

[Oko and Qailee]

Its not like he understood what the guy could do with the character. He is a new dm and he didnt even realize something like this was possible.

No joke, this has been a HUGE learning experience overall for me.

I'm running an actual not PbP campaign that started well after this, and it's going waaaaaaaay better. But that campaign is only at ~6 and I haven't dealt with lvl 15 psionics before.

I understand a lot of the problem here is my lack of knowledge vs his having significantly more so.

[Crake]

Let him know that any tricks he uses, the enemy can also use. Then let him know that his party members don't have those kinds of tricks up their sleeves. So it's gonna be 10v1 in terms of high OP tricks and the game's gonna end with no fun for anyone.

[Oko and Qailee]

BTW thanks a lot guys for all the help, both telling me to stop being ridiculous and giving me advice. It helps a lot.

[DementedFellow]

In my humble opinion, the problem started when you allowed psionics. Sure it is fun to allow players to build whatever they want, but psionics is its own personal system and it can take some time to understand what broken combos they can pull off after a cursory read.

Most other DMs threw out the idea of banning X ability or whatever. This to me is a bit of too little, too late. It has already been done.

My advice, put the kibash on this campaign. Change the tone to reflect a setting that has less potential for shenanigans. Low-magic or no-magic settings are a common tool and can still be fun.

edit: fixed wording

[Oko and Qailee]

My advice, put the kibash on this campaign. .

THis is definitely the end of it

[Mithril Leaf]

Have you read the reasoning behind the tier system and Ur-Priest's Monsterous Monster Manual? Those are both very useful for gauging encounters so this doesn't go down.

Note, if you want to be vindictive, you can have him get a younger Shaper apprentice who is impressed by the massive feat he performed, that then poisons him in the middle of his sleep with 100 gallons of black lotus and steals all his nice psionic gear.

[Oko and Qailee]

Have you read the reasoning behind the tier system and Ur-Priest's Monsterous Monster Manual? .

I have read through the tier system, but I think a large part of it was:
1) The Sorcerer in our party never broke the game and it's t2, so the effect of "tiers" were somewhat diminished with me

2) I never saw anything at all of the tier system in practice. The Psion doing what he just did now is my first experience with action economy breaking down like that.

[Mithril Leaf]

I have read through the tier system, but I think a large part of it was:
1) The Sorcerer in our party never broke the game and it's t2, so the effect of "tiers" were somewhat diminished with me

2) I never saw anything at all of the tier system in practice. The Psion doing what he just did now is my first experience with action economy breaking down like that.

That would explain it. At low optimization the tier 2s generally play more like tier 4s. The wizard, cleric, and druid can all do the same things as your psion did (or would have done, had what he actually done not been totally illegal), plus other totally different things the next day. Now you've got a solid reference point at least.

[Oko and Qailee]

That would explain it. At low optimization the tier 2s generally play more like tier 4s. The wizard, cleric, and druid can all do the same things as your psion did (or would have done, had what he actually done not been totally illegal), plus other totally different things the next day. Now you've got a solid reference point at least.

Ok, in the interest of knowing this for the future, what are the common ways that wizards/clerics/druids can infinite loop?

I know about Gate chaining for example, but I'm sure there's tons of other things Wizards can do.

[DementedFellow]

The tier system is more about versatility and how they can take down different kind of encounters. That's why charger builds are rated down low. They can easily dish out a ton of damage, more so than even a blaster sorcerer, but they are a one-trick pony and they can only do that one thing so well.

The tier system smiles upon casters because of the nature of magic in 3rd edition. It can allow casters to do so much. The only casters who have a lower tier are those with restricted spellcasting or spells available to them.

I find that a lot of people lean too much on the tier system and assume that an optimized character can never reach outside their tier and that an unoptimized character can never fall below their tier.

As a DM you have the veto ability at the start. Along with a backstory, you should look at the character sheet and see what kind of player they are going to be. If you see early entry tricks, like precocious apprentice to qualify for prestige classes earlier, then it may be time to talk with the player and find out exactly why they want to do that.

[Fouredged Sword]

Well, for one a wizard can make a demiplane to hide on, bind a nightmare to astral project him back onto the material plane, then dementionaly lock the door (by having no focuses made from materials of his demiplane) and thus be immune to death.

Also, they can take 2-3 turns a round through celarity abuse, and then use summons that summon summons and gates that gate in creatures that cast gate.

Then there is persisted timestop.

[Mr.Bookworm]

This is definitely a problem that needs to be addressed out of game. The whole "DM sends killer monster after munchkin player" thing and it's variations are some really awful passive-aggressive feuding bull****, and it's not particularly fun for anyone involved.

So, my advice, if you've already talked to him about this issue, he's refused to listen, and his behavior is adversely affecting the fun of the rest of the group is to just kick him out.

I know that is super-hard and awkward and all of that, but if he's screwing up everything for everyone else, he needs to go. D&D in actual play is a group activity that you play to have fun with other people, not a masturbatory exercise in mathematics.

If you want to give him another chance, I don't blame you, but make it clear to him that he's going to have to leave if he pulls this kind of crap again.

[DementedFellow]

Then there is persisted timestop.

I don't think you can do that considering timestop is instantaneous

[Mithril Leaf]

Well, for one a wizard can make a demiplane to hide on, bind a nightmare to astral project him back onto the material plane, then dementionaly lock the door (by having no focuses made from materials of his demiplane) and thus be immune to death.

Also, they can take 2-3 turns a round through celarity abuse, and then use summons that summon summons and gates that gate in creatures that cast gate.

Then there is persisted timestop.

Which doesn't work anymore, since it got specific errata against it.


The tier system is more about versatility and how they can take down different kind of encounters. That's why charger builds are rated down low. They can easily dish out a ton of damage, more so than even a blaster sorcerer, but they are a one-trick pony and they can only do that one thing so well.

The tier system smiles upon casters because of the nature of magic in 3rd edition. It can allow casters to do so much. The only casters who have a lower tier are those with restricted spellcasting or spells available to them.

I find that a lot of people lean too much on the tier system and assume that an optimized character can never reach outside their tier and that an unoptimized character can never fall below their tier.

That's accounted for by the tier system though. It assumes an average level of optimization throughout the classes. A poorly optimized character is fairly universally going to be worse than a very well optimized character, regardless of their classes. However, what the tier system does claim, that if a wizard and a fighter are both made and played by competent players then the wizard will be better, is quite correct. If anything, people rely too much on their own incorrect interpretations of a tool.

Things to look out for:
Usage of excessive aid another checks.
Cancer Mage.
Tainted Scholar.
Basically, anything on this list (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19861846/Campaign_Smashers_II:_The_stuff_that_completely_br eaks_the_game). Most of them are caster based.

[Sunaris]

I'm new to DM'ing as well and I've been reading up as much as I can. The length of his buff to me sounds like he's sneaking something in or misinterpreting his abilities. Thinking about how I would handle it though I have an option that would completely be in character for a demon. He changed his type to an Outsider. I'd rule he's now affected by Greater Planar Binding or a higher level spell like Implore (from one of the Dragon magazine supplements). It binds a creature up to 18HD and 24HD respectively. If the demon casts two, a quickened version and a standard version, it should be able to trap the psicrystal as well. Merely ensure that the character's will save cannot possibly succeed. (Or have the Demon also have a wish spell in place that lets him declare one non-life threatening save to auto-fail.)

The demon then, per the spell, traps the player by his own nature, and is delighted to do so. He'd get a spell resistance roll to beat being bound, but you of course will roll better. You'd also need a dimensional anchor per the description of the spell to prevent any form of planar travel.

I also notice he gets to add +15 to any single save, I'd beat this by forcing a random high level death save or perhaps a paralysis fort save. Something he doesn't appear to be immune to.

In gaining experience myself, I'd be interested in hearing why this wouldn't work.

[Big Fau]

Ok, in the interest of knowing this for the future, what are the common ways that wizards/clerics/druids can infinite loop?

I know about Gate chaining for example, but I'm sure there's tons of other things Wizards can do.

While there are infinites in Arcane casting, it tends to be an area that Psionics has an easier time achieving. Arcane casting breaks the game in ways that Psionics doesn't (or rather, can't).

IIRC, the Spell Compendium has a way for a Wizard to generate infinite spells (and then there's the Echoing Shadow Miracle trick).

[ahenobarbi]

Easy way to cast yourself to many actions as sorcerer:
1) Use standard action to cast Twinned Celerity to get 2 actions.
2) Use standard action for something you want to do.
3) Go to 1.

Wizard can do the same with one of many methods to get spontaneous casting (to cast Twinned Celerity as standard action, not swift).

Cleric can go Ruby Knight Vindcator and change turn attempts to swift actions (and cast/use belt of battle to change them into standard actions).

Druid can go planar Shepard and have time around him flow 1000 times faster than for everyone else.

[underlaud]

As someone that has been "That Guy" if other players are not having fun then it needs to be addressed. Don't just outright kill him, at higher levels death really isn't that much of a issue anyway and he will just make another character with the "Screw the dm" mindset.

As a DM you have the ability to ban/limit powers and spells and such though make sure he understands why. Object of the game is to make sure everyone is having fun. If he repeat offends, boot him. It is better than having your other players quit cause they are not enjoying themselves.

Psionics is one of my favorite things and are fairly well balanced (first time i have seen someone break it that much.)

Oh you can always do a magic circle to prevent summons from approaching.

[underlaud]

Oh, a stipulation that was always imposed on me with psionc characters was that you could never spend more than your Manifester Level in power points in a round no matter how many actions you took (be it from powers or feats like quicken power.) This keeps them on par with other casters. I thought this was a base rule but I cannot find it so my dm may have just added it to our games. It does help out alot though. He can still do his cool powers, but with the limitation on spending the points he cant go balls to the wall like what he did.

Overchannel would allow him to up his ML of course.

Calculating the pp usage he spent 246 pp + assay power resistance (could not find that to calculate the pp cost.) At lvl 15 a psion with a 24 or 25 int would only have 247 pp... If he had that many to begin with the dude would be spent completely and unable to do ANYTHING until he rests. ((Fun note, if you do not have at least 1 pp left you cannot maintain psionic focus))

If you want to teach him a lesson, let everything go through and then when all his buffs go away, have something else attack them, he will be unable to do anything.

Oh also he has powers of a Telepath, Shaper, and Egoist at the same time. Might want to check his feats to make sure he took the expanded knowledge ones to get these powers.

Edit: Added PP usage totals.

[sleepyphoenixx]

The relevant rule is found here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicPowersOverview.htm#manifestingPowers).


Manifester Level

The variables of a power’s effect often depend on its manifester level, which is equal to your psionic class level. A power that can be augmented for additional effect is also limited by your manifester level (you can’t spend more power points on a power than your manifester level). See Augment under Descriptive Text, below.

You can still easily break the action economy with any or all of Schism, Synchronicity, Sense Danger and Anticipatory Strike.
If your players can't be trusted to use these powers sparingly and responsibly you should probably ban them or at least restrict them to 1/round or less.

[underlaud]

The relevant rule is found here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicPowersOverview.htm#manifestingPowers).



You can still easily break the action economy with any or all of Schism, Synchronicity, Sense Danger and Anticipatory Strike.
If your players can't be trusted to use these powers sparingly and responsibly you should probably ban them or at least restrict them to 1/round or less.

True, but the way my dm did it, it didn't matter what powers you used you still were limited on the ML level for the ENTIRE round, even if powers or effects gave you multiple actions or turns.

[Yuki Akuma]

True, but the way my dm did it, it didn't matter what powers you used you still were limited on the ML level for the ENTIRE round, even if powers or effects gave you multiple actions or turns.

That's not how the rules really work, though. So it's not a useful suggestion, especially for a game this far in.

[Aracor]

It's also probably worth noting that the summon powers are 1 round manifestations. So the standard action granted by Synchronicity won't give him enough time to manifest either astral construct or planar champion.

[Oko and Qailee]

Ok, well, I'm going to read everything he did and all the rles related and see what he could have or could not have done. At the very least I'll learn from it which is the important thing. If he still breaks the fight I'm just going to tell him to tne it down and if he refuses I'll make it a rule.

If he cant do all that, but only do it limited, it might not be as bad as I think.

[Oko and Qailee]

Correct me if I'm wrong:
1) Anticipatory strike does not grant a swift action
2) You need to wait 1 round before Schism allows you a standard action

[Segev]

You've made this encounter deliberately at least 5 CR ahead of what the party should be able to handle. I suggest pushing the BBEG himself up fully into Epic. Give him a psionic version of this feat (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm#spellStowaway). Now, the BBEG gets all of the same actions as the PC, when the PC uses shenanigans to get them, and more importantly, the BBEG takes them at the same time as the PC if the PC is using time-stop-like effects.

If you feel the fight needs a bit of a reset button, pick some of the coolest henchmen that you're sad didn't get to act and rule that the BBEG had simulacra of them in place as ablative distractions and for sorting algorithm of evil purposes. His actions should involve Gating in or otherwise calling up the real ones.

I wouldn't undo everything unless you just want to retcon the whole start of the fight; let there be a consequence for the actions taken. Futility isn't fun for any players. But if you've so vastly under-estimated this fight that it's necessary to do a little fudging, go ahead and do so. I don't usually recommend that, but when a player is effectively breaking the social contract, it can be necessary.

I would also explain to the player that, should you ever let him in a game again, he has no warnings left. If he doesn't immediately back down and uncheese when you start smelling it, he's out of the game, with his character written out however you feel best.

[Renen]

Just read the OP only, but wanna comment before I read more.
If that was me, and I like playing psions, I would do what he did. I see DM throw us a clearly impossible task, I go "Hmmm ok... thats how you gonna play it?" Then I proceed to spend all my resources for the day demolishing said challenge.

[underlaud]

Correct me if I'm wrong:
1) Anticipatory strike does not grant a swift action
2) You need to wait 1 round before Schism allows you a standard action

1) You can take a standard action and a move action, or a full-round action. (http://therafim.wikidot.com/anticipatory-strike)

2) Your second mind takes its first action on your turn in the round after schism is manifested. (http://therafim.wikidot.com/schism)

[Aracor]

Correct me if I'm wrong:
1) Anticipatory strike does not grant a swift action
2) You need to wait 1 round before Schism allows you a standard action

Whether or not Anticipatory Strike grants a swift action is somewhat hard to determine. In theory, it's normally cast as an immediate action, which takes up the swift action on the next turn. In which case you get your full round action minus your swift action, and then you don't get to go on your regular initiative count.

He's using a different interpretation of the power. He's treating it as being able to stack two turns in one, which I wholeheartedly disagree with. He's manifesting it on his turn rather than someone else's, that lets him take his turn now instead of...now? My interpretation of this power: It lets you take your normal action for that particular round early based on when you manifest, and so you can pay 9 power points to make up for a low initiative roll. It does NOT let you get two turns in a row. So he's completely wrong. He manifests Anticipatory strike, but since he's already going now, he wasted his swift action and 9 power points. He can now take his regular full-round action, which unfortunately does allow him to use the twinned synchronicity shenanigans. But he no longer has a swift action remaining to use Temporal Acceleration. So he's done there.

As for schism, you are correct. He's apparently decided that Anticipatory Strike is letting him use his second turn first...which still isn't the case.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Correct me if I'm wrong:
1) Anticipatory strike does not grant a swift action
2) You need to wait 1 round before Schism allows you a standard action

1) no, only a standard and a move action or a full round action. It's pretty much psionic celerity.

2) yes. If you manifest Schism and use Anticipatory strike directly after that you arguably get the additional action from Schism though, at the cost of your action next turn.
That's vague enough to be rule 0 territory so you can simply say no.


Just read the OP only, but wanna comment before I read more.
If that was me, and I like playing psions, I would do what he did. I see DM throw us a clearly impossible task, I go "Hmmm ok... thats how you gonna play it?" Then I proceed to spend all my resources for the day demolishing said challenge.

Leaving aside the fact that an optimized party can handle an encounter that's a few CR higher without resorting to action economy cheese, how would you as a player actually know the exact CR of your enemies?
Even if you did, immediately assuming the DM is trying to screw you over and destroying the game is hardly the answer. There was probably a reason for it that's not "i want a TPK".

[Oko and Qailee]

There was probably a reason for it that's not "i want a TPK".

The reason fr it was that,when his previous character was level 12, it could have theoretically beat an an army of CR17 sorrowsorn demons as long as he never nat 1'd his saves.

I only put 1 sorrowsorn in against them when they were level 12, and imagine my surprise when the party charger can't do anything at all, but his character is immune completely to the demon.

So the next fight I used the charger against them and the charger got dominated into killing his character (a choice I regret, I understand it was douchey of me), even then, before the charger was dominated the entire encounter was tailored around providing a challenge for that player, and yet he was essentially completely uneffected while another player told me the fight was too hard.

So I dominated the charger and killed his character, because it's what any good enemy would have done tactically, kill the unstoppable person.

So fast forward to now. I gave the party some nice defensive stuff, but realized this player was still going to have something good. I decided to throw a mixture of low level casters with high CR Demons, the demons are mostly going to melee/summon only. The BBEG is essentially melee only.

Is his response natural? probably, but I don't want to TPK, plot wise this is literally them stopping the end of the world. It has to be a challenge, it has to be scary. I expected him to have a good build, but I didn't expect him to one shot both the Balor and the Pit Fiend right away, before they can have a meaningful effect on the battle.

[sleepyphoenixx]

There's a difference between a powerful and versatile build and abusing badly worded abilities. The level of optimization may vary from table to table but there are lines that just shouldn't be crossed.

It's reasonable to assume that players will refrain from breaking the game.
Abusing badly worded and written CPsi powers to break the action economy is simply a **** move that belongs in the realm of TO, not in a game.

As a DM you should ask your players what their builds can do if you don't know.
Get them to tell you their combos and intended playstyle so you can veto stuff like that before you need to retcon a whole fight.
It's not like you're the enemy and "getting something past the DM" is usually a good way to outshine the other players or simply destroy the campaign.

[Oko and Qailee]

This is what I'm leaning on.

0) Read more about psionics

1) Allow him to do this, after talking to him.

2) DM fiat the BBEG with some additional options to deal with psionics. The player will still feel useful for taking out the Balor and Pit Fiend, but it will leave the rest of the party to feel useful by taking out Mr. Big Bad

3) If the fight still seems too easy I have a back up plan (which I can't share here in case they still read forums).

I am not going to intentionally plan a TPK, but my goal here is to make each player feel useful and threatened (this is the end of the world). He got to get his awesome combo off, and I don't think I will rob him of it this time, but if he attempts it again then no (see: talk to him in step 1).

[Renen]

While I would have likely done similar, having been faced with a demon and a small army, with the world at stake, he did do alot of things wrong.

Well, I see a few problems with what he did:
1) Anticipatory strike is indeed used wrong. Its supposed to allow you to auto win initiative, not do what he did.

2) His psycristal has Metamorphic Transfer? Does he have that feat, along with one of the host feats to make this possible? (Cant find character sheet. Would actually love to see it) Actually, does his psycristal have TWO of those feats, because it gets the 2 abilities?

3) "you can't use the power (Anticipatory strike) a
second time until after your next turn has passed." Does his turn count as passed while in time stop?

Edit: You know... you can just DM fiat some way where they fight the boss in one of 2 ways:
1) They each fight him solo, having been drawn into some alternate reality with a piece of the boss's essence.
2) Have them fight him all together, but do it like a video-game multi stage fight, where he might become invulnerable to some stuff at certain periods. (Magic, psionics, physical damage)


In my humble opinion, the problem started when you allowed psionics. Sure it is fun to allow players to build whatever they want, but psionics is its own personal system and it can take some time to understand what broken combos they can pull off after a cursory read.

Most other DMs threw out the idea of banning X ability or whatever. This to me is a bit of too little, too late. It has already been done.

My advice, put the kibash on this campaign. Change the tone to reflect a setting that has less potential for shenanigans. Low-magic or no-magic settings are a common tool and can still be fun.

To know what psionics can do, just read the psionics tricks thread. You will be mostly up to speed on their broken stuff.

But in reality, your sorcerer can break the campaign much more than the psion... if the sorc actually tried that is.

[Spuddles]

This isn't a rules issue, and everyone treating it like it is, misses the point.

Homeboy is egregiously breaking the Gentleman's Agreement. He can clearly not be trusted to make his own character without very special rules in place.

Like any game theory, his breaking of the gentleman agreement should precipitate a disproportionate response in kind- ruin his fun. He's demonstrated a gross unwillingness to play like a decent person and clearly doesn't respect you or the other players.

Any time he does anything, make him roll a check, then arbitrarily tell him his roll failed, and his action did nothing.

Do this until he gets it, or leaves.

Remember, you're the DM. The rules don't exist for you, you can do whatever you like. It's not that you should do whatever you like, but that power is reserved for dealing with asshats like your friend.

So fiat the monsters making their saves, their checks, whatever. Then have them dispel half the stuff the psion put up. Just because **** him, and **** his mentality.


That's not how the rules really work, though. So it's not a useful suggestion, especially for a game this far in.

I dont mean to single you out, but it's this sort of attitude that will create problems. Problem player has already been afforded a couple chances, yet he continuously and unashamedly breaks the Agreement, with munchkin tactics no less. That means you get to go old school on him.

Thinking that the DM must abide by the rules at all times leads to players walking all over you. The system is so full of rules abuses it is far easier for a DM to simply shut disruptive players down than patch every single exploit.

[Renen]

Any time he does anything, make him roll a check, then arbitrarily tell him his roll failed, and his action did nothing.

Player finds ways to auto-roll nat 20's. DM cries himself to sleep.

Alternatively, my fave low lvl power: Molecular bonding. No save to glue their sword to their scabbard.

[erikun]

I would ask one big question: How much of this is a problem with an overpowered character, and how much of this is a character playing reasonably but holding back an extreme power trick against a DM who likes throwing CR+5 and higher challenges at the party?

Because it sounds like the only time he pulled this sort of trickery off was when the party was faced with a challenge that would TPK everyone except for the psion character pulling out this giant combo.

How has the character behaved in other situations? Does he always pull out problematic or broken tricks to eliminate the challenge? Or is he a reasonable team player, generally just keeping in line with the rest of the party until confronted with situations like this?


This is what I'm leaning on.

0) Read more about psionics

1) Allow him to do this, after talking to him.

2) DM fiat the BBEG with some additional options to deal with psionics. The player will still feel useful for taking out the Balor and Pit Fiend, but it will leave the rest of the party to feel useful by taking out Mr. Big Bad

3) If the fight still seems too easy I have a back up plan (which I can't share here in case they still read forums).

I am not going to intentionally plan a TPK, but my goal here is to make each player feel useful and threatened (this is the end of the world). He got to get his awesome combo off, and I don't think I will rob him of it this time, but if he attempts it again then no (see: talk to him in step 1).
Well, first thing I would do is take a look at the list of broken tricks linked earlier. Here (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19861846/Campaign_Smashers_II:_The_stuff_that_completely_br eaks_the_game) is the list again. Make sure to adjust or ban the things that cause brokenness in psionics, and probably in magic as well.

Next, is this causing a problem in the game? By that, are the players upset that the psion can do such things, or are they glad the psion could pull off such a win during such an overwhelming encounter? I haven't heard anything about what the other players are interested in so far, just that the DM is frustrated that one of the players can destroy high-CR encounters.

After that, I'd sit down with the player and have a short talk. Namely, one along the lines of "player should not build overpowerd broken characters, and DM should not build overpowered broken encounters." I have found that, if the player is reasonable, then they'll tell you about the super-awesome-combo they have stocked up for an exceptionally dangerous situation. And then, the DM doesn't have to worry about the player destroying most challenges they run across, except in times when the party is in big danger or being wiped out.

[Reinkai]

For what it's worth, I agree with Spuddles. The main goal of D&D is to have fun. The players are the main characters of the story, and it should be about them. They should be given the opportunities to shine, but not at the expense of each other.

Designing things specifically to kill off certain players, or take them out of the game for long periods of time, is not fun for anyone. No one likes to sit there and do nothing while their friends are all taking turns and rolling dice (something that can also be applied to the other party members in the case of your one-shot-king).

You have the ability to veto things, despite RAW, because you're the DM (if necessary). It almost doesn't matter if that combo is legal in the RAW (which I find dubious, at best), simply tell him "I'm sorry, but I'm not going to allow that". Make him used to that line.

Players should not be able to walk all over everything to the detriment of everything else in the game.

[lsfreak]

Spoilering for the side question.


Ok, in the interest of knowing this for the future, what are the common ways that wizards/clerics/druids can infinite loop?

I'm a bit rusty, but here's a few of the big ways to break the normal action limit.

First, as something relevant to several things, Persistent Spell. It's a +6 metamagic that turns a spell with a duration into flat 24 hours, with some caveats (fixed range or personal). On it's own, it's good, but not bad (possible exception: wraithstrike, 2nd level, for one round all attacks are touch attacks, is reaaally good on gishes). The problem comes with obviating the level cost, generally either with incantatrix (takes just skill checks) or DMM:Persist (by burning 7 TU attempts), letting you persist high-level spells. Incantatrix also breaks the fixed/personal range restriction, persisting buffs on other people, and between this and the low cost is veeeeeery prone to abuse (take a look at Team Solars (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=188138), which uses Incantatrix persisting among other things to incredible effect). The DMM:Persist version isn't too bad overall just because of how many resources are sunk into it; as long as you limit nightstick-stacking, for 7 turn undead attempts + Extend + Persist + DMM:Persist, getting two or even three 24-hour-duration buffs is powerful but generally not overwhelming. Beyond, usually with nightsticks, starts to get problematic.

Second, Repeat Metamagic, Twin Metamagic, and Twin Power. Repeat is cast again automatically the second round, and twin has two go off at once. Twinned blasty spells are fine, but twinned extra action spells?

Now, some of the major action-economy abilities:
Celerity (wiz/sorc, immediate action, take an action, dazed next turn). On it's own it's damned good. With daze immunity (rare, but there's a trick to getting it on a wizard) it's bannable. With foresight, it means the caster goes first, period, which can mean instantly teleporting away, or getting an automatic surprise round to drop encounter-ending stuff on whoever's there.

Arcane fusion (sorcerer-only, 5th level that lets you cast a 4th +1 st, or 8th level that lets you cast a 7th+4th). The problem here (in addition to twinning via reducers/rods) is combining it with Sanctum Spell, which actually lowers the level of a spell. Now, Sanctum Spell itself is really the problem here, not arcane fusion, but it lets you chain the spells together by using (greater) arcane fusion cast another (greater) arcane fusion, until you run out of slots if you want (requires getting rid of the increased cast time on sorcerer spells, or using tricks to get it on other spell lists).

Arcane spellsurge (sorc/wiz, for rnds/level, you can cast standard-action spells as swift actions, and full-round spells as standard). Usually found on sorcerers, not wizards, since wizards are generally left with swift-action spells but nothing much to do with their standards, while sorcerers can go with normal spell + metamagicked spell every round. Worth being aware of on its own, do NOT let it combine with aforementioned Persist tricks.

DMM:Quicken (feat). Just another action-economy breaker to be aware of, often considered DMM:Persist's more behaved sibling.

Residual Magic (feat), which allows you to apply a metamagic feat at no cost to a spell that was cast with that feat on it the previous round. Once again, fine on its own, but can be used with DMM:Quicken to get it on max-level spells, or twinned/repeated action economy spells to completely break things (though it explicitly doesn't work with items like rods that apply the metamagic).

Planar Shepard (druid PrC). Worth banning on it's own, because it advances all of the druid's abilities and adds more. The broken part is the planar bubble, where among other things the druid adopts their chosen plane's time trait. Pick a 10:1 plane and suddenly you get 10 actions to everyone else's 1.

Ruby Knight Vindicator (divine/ToB dual-progression PrC). Has an ability to burn TU attempts for extra swift actions. Has no cap on that ability. I think pretty much everyone caps it to 1/rnd, and even then be aware of combinations like DMM:Quicken to drop three max-level spells in a round.

Persisted Time Stop. RAW arguments for it not working are pretty flimsy, and when I was around a few years ago, at least, board consensus was that it's 100% rules-legal, if completely ridiculous.

[Oko and Qailee]

Next, is this causing a problem in the game? By that, are the players upset that the psion can do such things, or are they glad the psion could pull off such a win during such an overwhelming encounter? I haven't heard anything about what the other players are interested in so far, just that the DM is frustrated that one of the players can destroy high-CR encounters.
.


This is a good question.

This is what another player said to me right after he pulled this trick

"Is and Um'Kelt lay face-flat on the ground and waits for either the world to end or the crazy psionic person to slaughter everything"

and

"if he can't go overboard with stuff he's doing, he won't do it
moderation doesn't seem to be in his dictionary"

These were the words of my party barbarian, and it's not the first time he said something to this extent.

[erikun]

Alright, just making sure. I've seen situations where it could be one or the other, so I just wanted to verify.

Then yes, I would recommend talking with your player and going over what his his next character can do and is capable of. Make sure that it stays within reason, and don't be afraid to restrict or ban material that causes problems. Explain to the player that his taking over the game is causing problems for everyone, not just the DM.

I'd recommend just allowing material that you are familiar with, especially if you are somewhat new to DMing. As much as I like psionics, I don't like seeing characters made that just disrupt the entire game.

[Augmental]

This isn't a rules issue, and everyone treating it like it is, misses the point.

Homeboy is egregiously breaking the Gentleman's Agreement. He can clearly not be trusted to make his own character without very special rules in place.

Like any game theory, his breaking of the gentleman agreement should precipitate a disproportionate response in kind- ruin his fun. He's demonstrated a gross unwillingness to play like a decent person and clearly doesn't respect you or the other players.

Any time he does anything, make him roll a check, then arbitrarily tell him his roll failed, and his action did nothing.

Do this until he gets it, or leaves.

Remember, you're the DM. The rules don't exist for you, you can do whatever you like. It's not that you should do whatever you like, but that power is reserved for dealing with asshats like your friend.

So fiat the monsters making their saves, their checks, whatever. Then have them dispel half the stuff the psion put up. Just because **** him, and **** his mentality.

If the DM hates the player that much, he should just kick him out of the game and have him gone a lot faster.

[Ace Nex]

Control the damage. WHen you DM, keep track of their feats and powers and how they want to use them. This will prevent the cheese, and if they exploit them by attempting to deceive you, state "it doesn't work". You're the god in D&D, so you decide what works and doesn't. Knowledge is power, and knowing how they reach this level of godliness is how you can prevent it and keep it more balanced.

[Spuddles]

Control the damage. WHen you DM, keep track of their feats and powers and how they want to use them. This will prevent the cheese, and if they exploit them by attempting to deceive you, state "it doesn't work". You're the god in D&D, so you decide what works and doesn't. Knowledge is power, and knowing how they reach this level of godliness is how you can prevent it and keep it more balanced.

Yep. I'm all for player choice, and freedom, and people going crazy with the rules, so long as the Agreement isn't broken. And when it is, discussion with the players should follow. As a DM, I ruthlessly follow the rules. If anyone questions be about something, I can point to 3 different source books, several threads of discussion, why the ruling I made I think is justified, etc. etc. I think that's important for the game, that the DM follow restraints.

But when you do all that, and a player continues to be a dink? Then you have to resort to old school, heavy handed, DMing tools and liberal use of rule zero.

[Novawurmson]

If this is a repeated problem, kick him from the game. Nicely, politely, but the character is a problem and needs to leave. If the player shows a consistent pattern of playing theoretical optimization characters inappropriate for the campaign, the problem is with the player, not the character.

The loops he's pulling are well-known, well-documented breaks in the system - something he's probably just Googled. Would you let a player play Pun-Pun? No? Why? Because it's an obvious abuse of the rules that ruins fun for everyone. When the player resorts to tired, old tricks when you specifically asked him to tone it down, there's no excuse.

People can break the game with Wizards. People can break the game with Clerics and Druids. People can break the game with Psions. Hell, in an unoptimized campaign, you can be completely overpowered with a Fighter. The point is that you've told the player to chill it, but he gets his giggles by ruining the fun for everyone else.

[LordBlades]

Control the damage. WHen you DM, keep track of their feats and powers and how they want to use them. This will prevent the cheese, and if they exploit them by attempting to deceive you, state "it doesn't work". You're the god in D&D, so you decide what works and doesn't. Knowledge is power, and knowing how they reach this level of godliness is how you can prevent it and keep it more balanced.


This is a bad attitude IMO. Arbitrarily shutting down player abilities in the middle of them using it just because it doesn't align with what you as a DM feel the players should be able to achieve in a given situation is often a quick way to get rid of the players who want to play D&D 3.5 and not Mother may I with the DM.

Regarding the issue in the OP, everybody is jumping at the player (which does have serious issues regarding playing nice with others), but I think the DM also has quite a significant part of the blame here.

He throws a CR+5 encounter at the party (which he plans to balance by bad tactics, but the player can't know that). There's no way for the players to know whether it's

A) Deliberately overpowered encounter they're supposed to run away from
B) Overpowered encounter they're supposed to give it their best shot against
C) Seemingly overpowered encounter that the DM will make manageable by circumstances or bad tactics

Players need to take their guess on that one.

Hell, if I was a player with a level 15 character that met a Balor, I'd quickly evaluate my options of killing it before it acts. Then I'd quickly evaluate my options to be immune to Blasphemy. If none suitable was found, then I'd run the hell away. Balor has CL 20 Blasphemy. CL 20 Blasphemy on 15 HD target means paralyzed for 1d10 minutes. No save, no nothing. This means either dead or prisoner (aka welcome to the choo-choo train, please stick to the rails)

Actually, if I was a player with any non-epic character facing a Balor and a Pit Fiend, I still go for one-shot or run because I'd be expecting Blaspehmy lock (Balor uses Blasphemy every round to keep any non-epic, non-immune opponent dazed, Pit Fiend does the killing). Between a 24 Int&Wis Balor and a 26 Int&Wis Pit Fiend they should be smart enough to figure out how to do it.

[sleepyphoenixx]

I think the main problem people have with the players actions is that he uses broken ability abuse, selective reading and creative misinterpretation of the rules to pull of a gamebreaker combo on an inexperienced DM after being explicitly warned to tone it down.

That has nothing to do with a bad DM decision regarding encounter design.
It's a honest mistake from my understanding. Sure, it's probably better to come at balance from the other direction and beef up enemies with good tactics and tricky combos but that's something that can be brought up OOC after the fight.

[underlaud]

This is a bad attitude IMO. Arbitrarily shutting down player abilities in the middle of them using it just because it doesn't align with what you as a DM feel the players should be able to achieve in a given situation is often a quick way to get rid of the players who want to play D&D 3.5 and not Mother may I with the DM.

Regarding the issue in the OP, everybody is jumping at the player (which does have serious issues regarding playing nice with others), but I think the DM also has quite a significant part of the blame here.

He throws a CR+5 encounter at the party (which he plans to balance by bad tactics, but the player can't know that). There's no way for the players to know whether it's

A) Deliberately overpowered encounter they're supposed to run away from
B) Overpowered encounter they're supposed to give it their best shot against
C) Seemingly overpowered encounter that the DM will make manageable by circumstances or bad tactics

Players need to take their guess on that one.

Hell, if I was a player with a level 15 character that met a Balor, I'd quickly evaluate my options of killing it before it acts. Then I'd quickly evaluate my options to be immune to Blasphemy. If none suitable was found, then I'd run the hell away. Balor has CL 20 Blasphemy. CL 20 Blasphemy on 15 HD target means paralyzed for 1d10 minutes. No save, no nothing. This means either dead or prisoner (aka welcome to the choo-choo train, please stick to the rails)

Actually, if I was a player with any non-epic character facing a Balor and a Pit Fiend, I still go for one-shot or run because I'd be expecting Blaspehmy lock (Balor uses Blasphemy every round to keep any non-epic, non-immune opponent dazed, Pit Fiend does the killing). Between a 24 Int&Wis Balor and a 26 Int&Wis Pit Fiend they should be smart enough to figure out how to do it.

But would the players know the abilities of the monsters? If they are level 15 then the odds of them coming up against one before would be very unlikely and therefore they would not know the scope of the abilities of the creatures already. So the player going o**** Balor and Pitfiend must uber kill!, is kind of meta thinking that the character itself may not have known. I mean characters cant just walk around with a monster manual. Knowledge checks would help with this but I did not see any where in the post that they did that (I could be wrong, it was late when last I looked.)

But that said, I do agree that just shutting a player down is bad form, at least outright. But if it is a repeat offender a dm has to do what they have to do to salvage the game for the other players.

[Lafaellar]

Personally I think the most important step when a new character is to be introduced into the group and the player built him alone is to get a good look at the character sheet, especially when we are talking about a caster/psion.

You should have at least a basic understanding of the classes he is using.
If you find anything that sounds awkward to you, have him explain to you what it does.
Don't ask questions like "how many damge does your attack deal?"
Ask him questions like "what is the highest amount of AC you have planned your character can reach?" or "how many damage can he deal in a combat round?"
These questions force him to explain his strategies and tactics to you.

The worst thing that can happen is when the player tries to trick you into just showing you parts of the puzzle without showing the whole picture and then pulling of his amazing stunt and baffling you during the actual playing.

If such a thing happens and you talked to him beforehand, just tell him "No, I asked you beforehand and you did not mention this strategy, I am not prepared for it (and would not have allowed it anyway) so you may not use it".
So you point out that it is actually his fault for not being honest to you.

Players may never ever lie to the DM, because you are supposed to be in charge.

Another thing is, that a character should never force you to design an encounter especially for him so he does not beat it in the blink of an eye.
If that is necessary, something already is very wrong.

If a player already knows the power level of the group, tell him to aim for about the same power level and check if he does. If he hands in a character too powerful, simply say no.
If he does not know the power level, try to explain it to him and help him design the character that fits the group.

If a player simply tries to outmatch the other players' characters and does not give in to you, he needs to look for a group suiting his play style.

[LordBlades]

But would the players know the abilities of the monsters? If they are level 15 then the odds of them coming up against one before would be very unlikely and therefore they would not know the scope of the abilities of the creatures already. So the player going o**** Balor and Pitfiend must uber kill!, is kind of meta thinking that the character itself may not have known. I mean characters cant just walk around with a monster manual. Knowledge checks would help with this but I did not see any where in the post that they did that (I could be wrong, it was late when last I looked.)


All of that was OOC logic. Because the issue also relates to OOC logic (the encounter wasn't challenging enough, a character greatly overshadows the other, etc.)

In character, I fail to see how any of that is an issue. IC you're a dude that puts his life on the line. As such, there's little reason to go easy on the enemy (especially a non-human and fundamentally evil enemy). The harder and faster you obliterate the enemy, the bigger your chances of seeing your home and loved ones again are. IC you want to live to fight another day more than you want challenging encounters.

IC, if you're face to face with the biggest, baddest of Demons and Devils respectively, even if you don't know exactly what they do, you can at least assume it's something very, very, bad. As such, wouldn't it be reckless to not blast them immediately to kingdom come if you can?

Also, form an IC perspective, would you really mind traveling together with a guy much more stronger than you if that drastically increases the chances of getting out alive of whatever you got yourself into?

[Debatra]

Also, form an IC perspective, would you really mind traveling together with a guy much more stronger than you if that drastically increases the chances of getting out alive of whatever you got yourself into?

If you really want to go there, then sure. It would be strictly in the characters' best interest to have someone steamroll every potential threat.

Of course, the characters probably aren't in it to have fun playing a game, like the players most likely are.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Also, form an IC perspective, would you really mind traveling together with a guy much more stronger than you if that drastically increases the chances of getting out alive of whatever you got yourself into?

From an IC perspective, why would the super powerful psion drag around a bunch of useless grunts that do nothing but take a share of the loot?

[LordBlades]

If you really want to go there, then sure. It would be strictly in the characters' best interest to have someone steamroll every potential threat.

Of course, the characters probably aren't in it to have fun playing a game, like the players most likely are.
I didn't want to go there. Somebody else brought up the IC aspect.

[Mithril Leaf]

From an IC perspective, why would the super powerful psion drag around a bunch of useless grunts that do nothing but take a share of the loot?

Because Psions don't get planar binding.

[Renen]

All of that was OOC logic. Because the issue also relates to OOC logic (the encounter wasn't challenging enough, a character greatly overshadows the other, etc.)

In character, I fail to see how any of that is an issue. IC you're a dude that puts his life on the line. As such, there's little reason to go easy on the enemy (especially a non-human and fundamentally evil enemy). The harder and faster you obliterate the enemy, the bigger your chances of seeing your home and loved ones again are. IC you want to live to fight another day more than you want challenging encounters.

IC, if you're face to face with the biggest, baddest of Demons and Devils respectively, even if you don't know exactly what they do, you can at least assume it's something very, very, bad. As such, wouldn't it be reckless to not blast them immediately to kingdom come if you can?

Also, form an IC perspective, would you really mind traveling together with a guy much more stronger than you if that drastically increases the chances of getting out alive of whatever you got yourself into?

Actually, I love having characters that can do things similar to the problem here. But the way I play em is different. By their lore they are usually powerful but purposely downplay it for several reasons. They let the party shine plenty of times, by either not going full out or just letting them handle the fight in general, playing strictly support. But when they are facesd with a similar situation, they roll back their sleves and say "Allright, stand back I GOT THIS".

[Rosstin]

That's annoying... honestly that would be frustrating enough that I would just give the character the tools to become a God in the next 2 sessions, then end the campaign.

Then I'd start a new one and restrict players to single-class characters or something. There really some really good rule-variants for this. Like tell the player his character's abilities have to be restricted to at most 2 or 3 books, something like that.

I tend to be a bit of a min-maxer myself. Not to crazy levels, but I don't pull my punches. I enjoy games the most when there are restrictions on the kind of character I can build. It also means I don't have to spend 50 hours building a character, which is nice.

[LordBlades]

Then I'd start a new one and restrict players to single-class characters or something. There really some really good rule-variants for this. Like tell the player his character's abilities have to be restricted to at most 2 or 3 books, something like that.



Because single classed, core only, cleric, druid or wizard totally don't break the game.

Honestly, if somebody's out t break the game, no restriction in the world will stop them from doing so. There are so many ways to do that in 3.5 that it's infinitely easier to talk to the player/kick him out than ban/hosuerule every possible way to break the game.

[Rosstin]

One thing I always ban is summoning and polymorphing things you have no knowledge of. A big problem with this player's posts is... how does he know about these creatures? Has he studied them? Has he made pacts with them?

This seems silly, but to me it has always made sense as a DM. Polymorphing into something should require you to have dissected it and understood how it works. Summoning something requires some form of communication.

Granted, I play with a different group of players. When I play 3.5 with a group, we think about immersion and a bit of "realism" with respect to spellcasting. You have to learn spells. You have to practice them. It takes mental effort to make things happen.

Doing seven million things in a round as per "the rules" rarely makes much sense when you sit and think about "how did my character know to do that? Have I ever done this before? Where did I get the idea for this plan?" Etc.

[Augmental]

One thing I always ban is summoning and polymorphing things you have no knowledge of. A big problem with this player's posts is... how does he know about these creatures? Has he studied them? Has he made pacts with them?

That's what knowledge skills are for. :smalltongue:

[Rosstin]

Honestly, if somebody's out t break the game, no restriction in the world will stop them from doing so. There are so many ways to do that in 3.5 that it's infinitely easier to talk to the player/kick him out than ban/hosuerule every possible way to break the game.

You're right, of course.

This is always the problem with these kinds of games. Everyone needs to be on the same page to play properly and have fun, and it's always so hard to get the right group on the right page in the same room (virtual or otherwise.)

[LordBlades]

Doing seven million things in a round as per "the rules" rarely makes much sense when you sit and think about "how did my character know to do that? Have I ever done this before? Where did I get the idea for this plan?" Etc.

Well, in case of high level spellcsters, we're talking about people with truly superhuman levels of intellect. So just because it's hard to come up with the idea for you or me (presumably regular guys), it doesn't mean it's hard for somebody twice as smart as the smartest human who ever lived.

[Oko and Qailee]

This is a bad attitude IMO. Arbitrarily shutting down player abilities in the middle of them using it just because it doesn't align with what you as a DM feel the players should be able to achieve in a given situation is often a quick way to get rid of the players who want to play D&D 3.5 and not Mother may I with the DM.

Regarding the issue in the OP, everybody is jumping at the player (which does have serious issues regarding playing nice with others), but I think the DM also has quite a significant part of the blame here.

He throws a CR+5 encounter at the party (which he plans to balance by bad tactics, but the player can't know that). There's no way for the players to know whether it's

A) Deliberately overpowered encounter they're supposed to run away from
B) Overpowered encounter they're supposed to give it their best shot against
C) Seemingly overpowered encounter that the DM will make manageable by circumstances or bad tactics


I agree I effed up on the encounter difficulty.

However, I have explained to them before that, in order to balance and keep enemies from being one shot, I had to pick significantly tougher enemies, but that I would never unfairly chain CC or insta gib them.

In the entirety of the campaign only two player deaths occurred, one was the one I mentioned in the OP, the other was because the party barbarian had a +2 to his will save and failed both his saves vs phantasmal killer (It was DC24 if I remember correctly, I thought he would make the fort save and I was obviously wrong).

I felt bad about killing the player that way, so I let him bring back his character (Resurrection is banned as per the rules of the original DM) and then I gave him suggestions to improve his character optimization a bit so that way this sort of thing wouldnt happen again, even letting him return his periapt of wisdom for full price back and get a cloak of resistance instead.



EDIT: And I agree with the arbitrarily shutting him down idea. I mentioned a few pages back that I am going to probably let him do this and one shot both the pit fiend and the balor, but that still puts a big "ok well whats everyone else going to do now?", The BBEG is still standing, but he's not much stronger than a Balor or a Pit FIend, and the Psion killed both of those in 1 round after he spend most of the round buffing. No he can dedicated his entire round to doing damage, basically, my fear is what I said earlier "the barbarian player might as well stop posting"

[Deophaun]

One thing I always ban is summoning and polymorphing things you have no knowledge of. A big problem with this player's posts is... how does he know about these creatures? Has he studied them? Has he made pacts with them?
I would think the DC 50 knowledge check he made on the Balor answers that question.

That, and the demon he couldn't identify was described as being 2,000 feet tall. Sometimes you don't need a knowledge check to know the poop just hit the spinning blades.

[Spuddles]

Hey OP, look at the duration at a bunch of the psions powers. If the badguys fall back for about half an hour, problem player will lose a third of his armor, his temp hp, his dr, and his summons. Best of all, he shouldnt have more than 40 or 50pp left, so he wont be able to do much more broken stuff.

High cr outsiders have teleport at will and telepathy. You should give some of them the mindaight feat so they can ambush the psion in an hour or so.


All of that was OOC logic. Because the issue also relates to OOC logic (the encounter wasn't challenging enough, a character greatly overshadows the other, etc.)

In character, I fail to see how any of that is an issue. IC you're a dude that puts his life on the line. As such, there's little reason to go easy on the enemy (especially a non-human and fundamentally evil enemy). The harder and faster you obliterate the enemy, the bigger your chances of seeing your home and loved ones again are. IC you want to live to fight another day more than you want challenging encounters.

IC, if you're face to face with the biggest, baddest of Demons and Devils respectively, even if you don't know exactly what they do, you can at least assume it's something very, very, bad. As such, wouldn't it be reckless to not blast them immediately to kingdom come if you can?

Also, form an IC perspective, would you really mind traveling together with a guy much more stronger than you if that drastically increases the chances of getting out alive of whatever you got yourself into?

Irrelevant hogwash. Your character should never have had the ability to shut down a balor in one turn at level 15, and you're being a terrible player for using such a character. Especially after being asked to turn it down by everyone at the table.

End of story.


That's annoying... honestly that would be frustrating enough that I would just give the character the tools to become a God in the next 2 sessions, then end the campaign.

Then I'd start a new one and restrict players to single-class characters or something. There really some really good rule-variants for this. Like tell the player his character's abilities have to be restricted to at most 2 or 3 books, something like that.

I tend to be a bit of a min-maxer myself. Not to crazy levels, but I don't pull my punches. I enjoy games the most when there are restrictions on the kind of character I can build. It also means I don't have to spend 50 hours building a character, which is nice.

All these tricks that are being pulled can be done with a single classed psion using two books.

Such a rule does little to prevent problem players.


One thing I always ban is summoning and polymorphing things you have no knowledge of. A big problem with this player's posts is... how does he know about these creatures? Has he studied them? Has he made pacts with them?

This seems silly, but to me it has always made sense as a DM. Polymorphing into something should require you to have dissected it and understood how it works. Summoning something requires some form of communication.

Granted, I play with a different group of players. When I play 3.5 with a group, we think about immersion and a bit of "realism" with respect to spellcasting. You have to learn spells. You have to practice them. It takes mental effort to make things happen.

Doing seven million things in a round as per "the rules" rarely makes much sense when you sit and think about "how did my character know to do that? Have I ever done this before? Where did I get the idea for this plan?" Etc.

Astral Construct summons a ball of ectoplasmic goo from the astral plane. You then use your imagination to shape into whatever you want and assign it abilities

[Renen]

I should not have the ability to take a balor at lvl 15? Then dont pin me against one. As soon as thats done, theres a chance my character might flip out and actually (gasp) win the fight.

[LordBlades]

Irrelevant hogwash. Your character should never have had the ability to shut down a balor in one turn at level 15, and you're being a terrible player for using such a character. Especially after being asked to turn it down by everyone at the table.

End of story.




Apart from Blasphemy Balors are quite terribly built. Low AC, Low attack bonus, Low DCs. I've even seen non-casters (like charger barbarians) that can trounce a Balor in one round. I've also been in games where we've actually trounced Balors as low as level 12. Of course, everyone was built to that standard.

As I said from the start, I do agree the player has some issues adapting to the power level requited by the group.

[Oko and Qailee]

Guys this is what I've gathered from this thread/etc.

1) The players response made sense given the context in which it was happening

2) I made the fight too hard (which led to #1) because of his previous character

3) His previous character was invalidating two of the party members

4) I wanted to make a game of uneven tiers completely even.

I talked with the player. I mentioned that what he did was cheesy and arguably not rules legal (IMO, from what I gather reading through every one of those abilities), but given that I screwed up first I was going to let it go.

I then told him, that if he can do it, to please not one shot the BBEG, at least ntil the rest of the party can do stuff. He agreed. He also told me that, if it was't for the fact that this campaign was already ridiculous, he would never do what he just did.

So I think everything is fine. I am going to give the weakest party ember (the charger barbarian) an arbitrary buff so that his character feels more useful (instead of arbitrarily nerfing the psionic). It obv wont be as good as what the psion did, but all the people in this thread are right, the campaign is about the player not the DM and I'm going to try to end this on a good note.

Thanks for all your help guys. I think the player is a bit of a compulsive optimizer, but I don't think he was trying to screw me over. I overreacted to a situation I helped create (not saying what he did wasn't freaking crazy, or that his previous character wasn't frustrating)

[Crake]

I should not have the ability to take a balor at lvl 15? Then dont pin me against one. As soon as thats done, theres a chance my character might flip out and actually (gasp) win the fight.

The players aren't supposed to be able to tackle everything they come across, sometimes things that are above the players' paygrade happen right infront of their faces and there's nothing they can do about it. That's assuming that you play dnd as a role playing game rather than a roll playing game. If you play dnd to go from CR appropriate encounter to CR appropriate encounter, then that's fine for you, but not everyone plays it that way.

[LordBlades]

The players aren't supposed to be able to tackle everything they come across, sometimes things that are above the players' paygrade happen right infront of their faces and there's nothing they can do about it. That's assuming that you play dnd as a role playing game rather than a roll playing game. If you play dnd to go from CR appropriate encounter to CR appropriate encounter, then that's fine for you, but not everyone plays it that way.

I think Renen was rather hinting at the fact that as long as you put something in front of the players, it's their prerogative to try and kill it. And given the inherent nature of high level D&D, as long as that thing isn't 100% immune to whatever the PCs can do, there's always a non-0 chance it will die in a very anticlimactic way.

Not every encounter should be CR appropriate, or winnable for that matter. But IMO a DM should never fiat way the PCs ability to try. And if they somehow win your 'unwinnable' encounter, you shouldn't hold that against them.

[Crake]

I think Renen was rather hinting at the fact that as long as you put something in front of the players, it's their prerogative to try and kill it. And given the inherent nature of high level D&D, as long as that thing isn't 100% immune to whatever the PCs can do, there's always a non-0 chance it will die in a very anticlimactic way.

Not every encounter should be CR appropriate, or winnable for that matter. But IMO a DM should never fiat way the PCs ability to try. And if they somehow win your 'unwinnable' encounter, you shouldn't hold that against them.

Yeah, I agree that that is fair, but I think the circumstances (in this case a player building a clearly over optimised character that has shaky legality at best) would warrant otherwise. If on the other hand, someone threw out a finger of death, and the balor didn't have death ward, and rolled a 1, sure, that's perfectly fine. But I think we can all agree that that's a very different circumstance.

[Reinkai]

Agreed, there's quite a difference between a standard character getting lucky or being smart and killing a high CR opponent and a character using a million different abilities in an obscure combo to take five turns in a row, spend 247 PP, and wipe the floor with monster 5 levels higher than him.

But it sounds like the DM learned something, the players are ok with the situation right now, and all's well that ends well.

[Pickford]

"First, synchronicity is now banned. Second, those were illusions. The real ones...<fill in as needed>".

Also, seriously restrict bestow power (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/bestowPower.htm). If he tries to recharge with it or tries to get infinite power points say the following:
Recharge-The excess energy dissipates due to a conflict of power ownership and no power points are gained or lost.
Infinite power points-You feel an infinite amount of psionic power coursing through your veins. Unfortunately your body can't handle it and you detonate.

RAW? No. But you're the DM and he know he done wrong.

The way to recharge:

Earth power (cost -1)
Torc of power preservation (cost -1)
Pay 3-2=1 power points to gain 2

The way to infinity:

Fission
Affinity field (duplicate manifests this too)
Bestow power on duplicate (the affinity fields loop this effect infinitely)

Note that psions can go nova (spend max cap power points each round) in a boss fight. To prevent them from doing this every fight you need to make them hesitant to do so: Illusions, small but threatening earlier combats, etc.

Bestow Power doesn't do what you seem to think it does. You have to have power points to give. That is to say: You spend 3 power points and then give 2 to the recipient (5 total...not 3)

So at best, you've reduced the entry fee by 2 power points allowing you to only spend 3 to give a target 2 (assuming they have 2 manifester levels) instead of spending 5 total to give 2.

[JusticeZero]

Its not like he understood what the guy could do with the character. He is a new dm and he didnt even realize something like this was possible.
Furthermore, as has already been noted - it is very likely that what he did is not, in fact, possible.
That said:

1) The players response made sense (because..)
2) I made the fight too hard (which led to #1) because of his previous characterBingo. This is why I rage about the usual thinking about powergamers. people who make powerful characters often aren't doing it because they want to dominate everyone. They do it because.. wait for it.. they enjoy building powerful characters.

I like cooking. If I am an expert chef, and I am cooking with my friends, I can't easily downshift and just make grilled cheese sandwiches, slightly burned, just because that's the quality everyone else is doing. I'm still going to turn out a masterful dish. Why? Because I like cooking awesome food.I know a moderate amount about how to min-max a character. When i'm in a group and everyone is making things like halfling archery barbarians with Toughness and talking about how VoP monks need to be nerfed, i'm quietly crafting two or three awesome synergy combos into my character because, well, it just feels strange to me to not do that. I still have all the care on characterization as everyone else. Then I wander in and enjoy the game. I'm not trying to outshine the truenamer, honest. I'd love people to have their day. I try to offer my help to the rest of the party.

Sometimes, the fact that I CAN do awesome stuff means that the GM steps things up. This, by the way, is the exact wrong thing to do to a powergamer, because when you up the ante, I realize this: The party is about to die. So, I break the seals and step up to bat, and suddenly I cannot hide the fact that I am summoning angels and they are sitting on a BMX. As long as the GM was just tossing stuff at us without trying to "challenge" me, I was just hanging and enjoying myself.

Now, here's another thing about awesome power combos: When using them, you generally have to go big or go home. So this TPK in progress? It's about to die a horrible death, and it's going to be an embarrassing and anticlimactic one, because that's really the only way i'm going to keep my party alive. I'm about to stop being that kooky eccentric in the back of the group and go stomping through Tokyo all over that BBEG for the sake of the rest of my team. Before? I was just that old geezer druid, but now? You've gone and made me bury your BBEG under a mountain of bears or something equally silly.

Example: When i was younger, we were playing 2E Players option a lot. Now, our campaign had a lot of problems with campaigns fizzling, so a general understanding was reached that old characters could be used. So we're wandering through the adventure, i'm standing back and helping out the rest of the party with some spells.

Suddenly, the GM decides to up the ante and the rest of the party is faced with a challenge that is likely to tear through them like tissue paper. I frown. "Wall of Ice to seal the hallway. ("Yay, they can't get to us! Wait, we can't get them either..") Fly from an item, Invisibility potion. Dimension Door to the other side of the wall. Protection from Arrows. Animate Dead on the dead guards to create a small army of undead. They all attack the BBEG. Haste. Cloudkill." No more overpowered enemy challenge.

At this point, the rest of the party is dropping their jaws. The fighter (a level 3) asks why i'm not tanking in front, since I have a better THAC0, AC, and HP than he does. I shrug. "Because i'm the wizard, and you're a soldier." People start arguing, because they are having a hard time grasping that I just want to play the wizard who follows along with the party and casts the occasional helpful spell, instead of dominating everyone with the fact that i'm four times their level. The fighter never got over his snit fit that I could outfight him by the rules.

[Pickford]

I'm about to stop being that kooky eccentric in the back of the group and go stomping through Tokyo all over that BBEG for the sake of the rest of my team. Before? I was just that old geezer druid, but now? You've gone and made me bury your BBEG under a mountain of bears or something equally silly.

I once did this with a mountain of horses. (Many castings of Regal Procession)

[TuggyNE]

Bestow Power doesn't do what you seem to think it does. You have to have power points to give. That is to say: You spend 3 power points and then give 2 to the recipient (5 total...not 3)

Where does it say that?
Power Points: 3

You link your mind with another psionic creature’s mind, creating a brief conduit through which mental energy can be shared. When you manifest this power, the subject gains up to 2 power points. You can transfer only as many power points to a subject as it has manifester levels.
[…]For every 3 additional power points you spend, the subject gains 2 additional power points.

Nowhere does it state or imply that you must spend additional pp to accomplish the transfer; rather, 3pp are spent for every 2pp the subject gains, and that's it.

[Pickford]

Where does it say that?

Nowhere does it state or imply that you must spend additional pp to accomplish the transfer; rather, 3pp are spent for every 2pp the subject gains, and that's it.


You can transfer only as many power points to a subject as it has manifester levels

Transference means you give up something to give it to them. In this case, power points.

edit: For example, in a transfer of funds, you don't spontaneously generate money from nothing.

[ahenobarbi]

Transference means you give up something to give it to them. In this case, power points.

edit: For example, in a transfer of funds, you don't spontaneously generate money from nothing.

You don't know much about modern banking :smalltongue:

Actually it's a very good analogy: most entities when transferring have to loose at least as much money as recipient receives. However some are allowed to give orders of magnitude more than they used.

[aleucard]

I should not have the ability to take a balor at lvl 15? Then dont pin me against one. As soon as thats done, theres a chance my character might flip out and actually (gasp) win the fight.

From what it looks like to me, the player in question was the one who broke the Gentleman's Agreement first. If you don't step up to bat in that case as a DM, you're not doing it right. He's apparently been pulling this **** for a long time in the campaign, and since this was supposed to be the Final Boss of said campaign, going a little overboard would be completely acceptable.

Sounds to me like this player thinks breaking the game is how you play it. Nothing short of making his character sheet visible to the other players every time he has to modify it (char. creation, level-up, etc.) and making the player pick something else any time someone finds something that sends up red flags will 'fix' this problem. He's already been warned and talked to repeatedly by all members of the party AND the DM, so if he refuses to stop with the playground 'Everything-proof Shield' tactics just pants him until he learns to not be a prick. You're playing a game to have FUN, not to beat the game. If a player consistently refuses to let other players have fun, slap him around until the message sinks in.

There is nothing inherently wrong with high-op characters. The problem's that he refuses to play to the tier of the other players, and breaks out T0 things apparently at whim.

[LordBlades]

Yeah, I agree that that is fair, but I think the circumstances (in this case a player building a clearly over optimised character that has shaky legality at best) would warrant otherwise. If on the other hand, someone threw out a finger of death, and the balor didn't have death ward, and rolled a 1, sure, that's perfectly fine. But I think we can all agree that that's a very different circumstance.

So what would you have the player do in such a situation (not building a character that's operating at a radically different power level than the rest of the party notwithstanding)? Something like 'umm, I can totally take that encounter down in 1 round but let's just roll with it and probably die/have to run away because I probably shouldn't take down an encounter 5 CRs over me?' That would be pathetic IMO. Personally, if I see something on the other side of the battlemat and I have a realistic chance to kill it, then I will kill it. If the DM didn't want it to die, he shouldn't have put it there.

Also, regarding the questionable rules legality of what the player did, he doesn't seem to have done it on purpose and with ill will. It's entirely possible he misread some abilities, and given the level of D&D knowledge the rest of the table seems to possess, there wasn't anyone to point out 'dude, that doesn't work as you think it does'.

[TuggyNE]

Transference means you give up something to give it to them. In this case, power points.

Yes, that limits the total transfer (just as the first line states the fact that you're going to transfer). The power states what you give up (3pp, +3pp for each augment) and what you give (2pp per 3pp spent), and that is the full specification of the transfer amounts. Nothing more, nothing less; I'm not seeing how it's possible to correctly read it any other way.

[JusticeZero]

So what would you have the player do in such a situation? Something like 'umm, I can totally take that encounter down in 1 round but let's just roll with it and probably die/have to run away because I probably shouldn't take down an encounter 5 CRs over me?' .. if I see something on the other side of the battlemat and I have a realistic chance to kill it, then I will kill it.
Right.. Like I said, if I have an "overpowered" character - and I often do compared to some of the players i've played with, because i've seen a lot of builds that are, um... 'special'.. - it's just because once you know how to do it, if you're a bit of an obsessive learner like I am, it's really strange and awkward to NOT make a power build of some kind.

The last thing I want is to dominate the game, but if some ridiculously tough monster keyed up to my power level bears down on me, you can bet i'm stepping into that phone booth and taking off the Clark Kent glasses - and when I do, most people who don't know how to build like I do are simply not going to be able to contribute to the ensuing carnage. It's not because I want to hog the spotlight, it's because I know that if I let the rest of the party get killed, that they aren't going to have much fun.

So please. Just keep throwing goblins and orcs at us that the Monk, Rogue, and Truenamer can have a fun and challenging fight with. I don't need you to throw a Tarrasque at us just to "challenge" me, because i'm enjoying the game in other ways.

[Eric Tolle]

First, as a general rule, never allow something you don't understand into a game.

Second, 3.X games are full of edge cases and combinations that can be munchkinized. The complexity and bad editing if the game means that's inevitable. I ran Champions for 5 years and I would never run 3E. You might want to try a simpler game, like Dungeon Worldcheese is a lot less in those, Dungeon Crawl Classics, or even Fate Core. The potential for out-of-control cheese is a lot lower in those games.

[Pickford]

Yes, that limits the total transfer (just as the first line states the fact that you're going to transfer). The power states what you give up (3pp, +3pp for each augment) and what you give (2pp per 3pp spent), and that is the full specification of the transfer amounts. Nothing more, nothing less; I'm not seeing how it's possible to correctly read it any other way.

Easy, the power costs 3 to activate. The result is that you can transfer up to 2 pp to the target (if it has the ML to handle them of course). That's 5.

[TuggyNE]

Easy, the power costs 3 to activate. The result is that you can transfer up to 2 pp to the target (if it has the ML to handle them of course). That's 5.

But it doesn't say you transfer 2pp! It says you transfer power points (twice), and it says that after manifesting, the target gains 2pp. Therefore, the only possible reading is that the "transfer" is what the power as a whole (including pp cost to manifest) accomplishes; there is no other cost.

[denthor]

I say this all the time everybody jumps up and down Your wrong!!!

Restart your game start at 1st level. Make them build there characters from the bottom up.
This forces the player to make some really hard choices as to where to put there skill points what weapon to use. An entire list of things that if you start at higher levels you do not need to think about.

At higher levels optimation is easy you look at the book and go this goes with that this stacks here. I get to take this level in this type of PC class which lets me get this PrC class. I put my skill points this way.

The other thing that my DM does is PrC class need to trained. You have find a trainer pay the price(cash, time, adventure that they can not do since there time is valueable).

With this you are no longer being nasty, (killing the player for being a pest) you are injecting realism into your game.

I remember reading in the rule books not every wizard will cast a spell for you they may not like your alignment with... Or you may not like theres.


If they really want to run the big bad nasty make them earn it.

[Vaz]

Um, why?

While it might be "fun" playing around in the proverbial mudpit where you're barely better than the average courtly wizard, for a campaign where I've just been giving Asmodeus lessons in how to run the Nine Hells more efficiently, it just isn't the same.

If you're going to restart, restart at level 8-10. Everyone has more options there, and with better WBL (limit purchases for individual items to no greater than 25% of your total), they can start off a little more swanky.

Starting off at Level 1 as a Totemist, or a Soulborn, or an Ardent, or Fighter isn't much fun anyway, it isn't until later when PrC's open up for you that you can do more things.

[lsfreak]

The other thing that my DM does is PrC class need to trained. You have find a trainer pay the price(cash, time, adventure that they can not do since there time is valueable).

There are very different ways of viewing PrC's, though. I, like many on this board, view classes as entirely metagame concepts. You're not, in-game, going say you're a Ruby Knight Vindicator, and there may be zero fluff differences between a (very underpowered) cleric/crusader, and a (heavily optimized) cloistered cleric/crusader/ordained champion/ruby knight vidicator/sacred exorcist, except the fluff differences that come up as a result of one of those actually being effective.

[denthor]

There are very different ways of viewing PrC's, though. I, like many on this board, view classes as entirely metagame concepts. You're not, in-game, going say you're a Ruby Knight Vindicator, and there may be zero fluff differences between a (very underpowered) cleric/crusader, and a (heavily optimized) cloistered cleric/crusader/ordained champion/ruby knight vidicator/sacred exorcist, except the fluff differences that come up as a result of one of those actually being effective.


Let us say you are corrrect. There is still something to be said that you earned your title.


Quote Vaz:
Um, why?

While it might be "fun" playing around in the proverbial mudpit where you're barely better than the average courtly wizard, for a campaign where I've just been giving Asmodeus lessons in how to run the Nine Hells more efficiently, it just isn't the same.

If you're going to restart, restart at level 8-10. Everyone has more options there, and with better WBL (limit purchases for individual items to no greater than 25% of your total), they can start off a little more swanky.

Starting off at Level 1 as a Totemist, or a Soulborn, or an Ardent, or Fighter isn't much fun anyway, it isn't until later when PrC's open up for you that you can do more things.

I play for fun and thought process. If you start from the beginning -and we all have to start from somewhere- I at least feel a sense of accomplishment.

Nothing in this life is handed to you, that is not worked for. WBL guidelines and your reputation! Choices are what make D&D if you decide it is easier to do this rather than what is the right thing. You start to understand what a hard choice it is to get what you need.

I once was talking to an experience player/DM he took on a group that said they were the best. Turns out they had never start at first level. He had them play they asked to be higher(to tough). He let them become around 9th. He threw fire proof worms at them. They through every fire spell in the book. Accused him of cheating because the fire elemental worms would not die. They had about 10 points damage resistance and imunity to fire with 22 hit points per worm.

They never thought to throw a cold spell never thought to engage and put there weapons in danger. Also never did magic missle come to mind.


Oh and to your point about PrC opening up to be fun. The poster that started this was complaining that one person was ruining his game. With an overpowering character at a higher level. Yes,they are fun,now earn and make the decision in the begining to get to that level of play.

Prove your country bumpin can play in the big leagues. After all we do not know the name of any first level character. Only the names of the greats.


One thing that I read within this forum is the same thing over and over. My players are running over all of my encounters. So change the encounters and power level. Put some fear into players you may lose.

For those of you that disagree with me a problem:

I had a player admit he did this.

Lawful Good Paladin.

At the bottom of a set of trapped stairs. Where there are a bunch of no name no level sacrifices for the big bad guy.

He breaks the bars and says: That way to freedom he tells the go up the stairs knowing they are trapped and will kill most of them.

His logic why should I take the risk let the peasants clear the way for me. After all I am giving them there freedom back. Why should I risk anything I am more useful making sure that this threat is handled and eliminated.

He felt that he should still be Lawful Good and the survivors should go out and praise him as the greatest Paladin ever.

When pointed out that making other people die was not a good act. He said yes it is they are free and I am alive.

What would you do to his alignment powers etc. He felt that they were unjustly taken.

[Pickford]

But it doesn't say you transfer 2pp! It says you transfer power points (twice), and it says that after manifesting, the target gains 2pp. Therefore, the only possible reading is that the "transfer" is what the power as a whole (including pp cost to manifest) accomplishes; there is no other cost.

In the sentence immediately after the one about the target gaining 2 pp the text also says the manifester can only transfer as many pp as the target has manifester levels. That sentence means that the manifester loses the pp that go to the target.

If your point is that the power is not well written, then yes, I agree with that. As written however the cost mitigating abilities do nothing to reduce the cost of the transfer, only the cost of manifesting.

[LordBlades]

Let us say you are corrrect. There is still something to be said that you earned your title.



Except 90% of the time the title that you earned still means you're weaker than a single classed CoDzilla.


play for fun and thought process. If you start from the beginning -and we all have to start from somewhere- I at least feel a sense of accomplishment.

Nothing in this life is handed to you, that is not worked for. WBL guidelines and your reputation! Choices are what make D&D if you decide it is easier to do this rather than what is the right thing. You start to understand what a hard choice it is to get what you need.

Except starting at level 1 isn't really 'working for something' but rather hoping you get lucky or have a DM that fudges rolls. Otherwise, the chances of losing at least 1 PC to a stray crit without being anything you can do about it are quite high.

There's also the fact that some more or less classical concept like gish or rogue-wizard don't really work from level 1 unless you jump through some serious mechanical or fluff hoops that will most likely bite you in the ass later.

Also, D&D chars aren't forever. There's noting stopping you from starting at level 1 with something that's strong at level 1, then withdrawing that character and bringing it what you wanted to play all along.

[TuggyNE]

In the sentence immediately after the one about the target gaining 2 pp the text also says the manifester can only transfer as many pp as the target has manifester levels. That sentence means that the manifester loses the pp that go to the target.

Last try: no, that limits the total transfer, it in no way establishes that there is a cost of transfer separate from manifesting. How could it, and why?

Put another way, the target cannot, from the transfer that the power is expressly written to accomplish as a whole, gain more pp than its ML.

If the power was intended to require additional pp to actually accomplish the transfer, it would be simple to say something like this:
When you manifest this power, you transfer up to 2 power points from your reserve to the subject (in addition to the cost to manifest). You can transfer only as many power points to a subject as it has manifester levels, and you cannot transfer power points you do not have.

Mind you, the underlined portion is essential to avoiding weird edge case scenarios with your hypothesized reading, and is notably quite absent from the text, implying that either they paid no attention to this, or that the text was not written in a way that would suffer that problem. Which is more probable?


If your point is that the power is not well written, then yes, I agree with that. As written however the cost mitigating abilities do nothing to reduce the cost of the transfer, only the cost of manifesting.

My point is mostly that the power is poorly designed, and not quite clear enough to be easy to read for all possible readers; it is, however, unambiguous, and the simplest reading is also the correct one. Occam's Razor, already!

[Pickford]

Last try: no, that limits the total transfer, it in no way establishes that there is a cost of transfer separate from manifesting. How could it, and why?

If there was no transfer of pp then they would not have used the word transfer. By using said word, it is built in that one cannot transfer more pp than one has. The distinction is that one could spend their maximum allowed pp (i.e. a 15 level caster could spend 15, and then through that transfer 10 pp).

The use of transfer is what makes this unambiguous, your reading is incorrect because of that word.

edit: Tuggy, check out Metaconcert, the arguably higher level comparison. The manifester spends 9 pp to manifest, then, in addition, each participant contributes further pp. In both cases the principle is that there is a downpayment (manifesting cost) and 'further' pp inclusion.

[Kittenwolf]

There was a rule that the players in my last D&D game came up with that maybe you should mention to your players :)

"Never use any combo we don't want the DM using against us, for the DM has more characters than we do"

[TuggyNE]

If there was no transfer of pp then they would not have used the word transfer.

There is a transfer, yes. "Transfer", in context, means "use of bestow power to give the target power points at the cost of more power points from the caster". There is no other specific definition that would support your argument; "transfer" has no specialized game meaning by itself, and the general plain English definition easily accommodates my interpretation.


By using said word, it is built in that one cannot transfer more pp than one has.

Not really; there's a specific rule (needed) to prevent spending more pp than you have, but is there a specific rule against transferring more pp than you have? Maybe you can go negative! After all, it's not as though, say, bank accounts can't transfer more than they have in them. So it's not built into the word, and it's not built into any game definitions, because there aren't any for "transfer".

Sure, that was obviously not intended, but by going outside the definitions of "spending pp to manifest powers", you also go outside the usual restrictions.


The use of transfer is what makes this unambiguous, your reading is incorrect because of that word.

How? It can't be incorrect, because "transfer" is what the power as a whole is doing. That is literally how the first line of the power describes it! That's what that's for!


edit: Tuggy, check out Metaconcert, the arguably higher level comparison. The manifester spends 9 pp to manifest, then, in addition, each participant contributes further pp. In both cases the principle is that there is a downpayment (manifesting cost) and 'further' pp inclusion.

Quite so. Metaconcert devotes a number of clear and specific rules to transfer of power points that are quite explicitly above and beyond the cost of manifestation. Unfortunately, bestow power has none at all, and lacking any vague approximation of language similar to metaconcert's… bestow power does not work that way. If they really operated on the same principle, that would be nice, but they do not; different language, different purposes, different effects. In fact, metaconcert's clear wording, making it abundantly obvious that the pp transferred to the pool are extra, is a strong argument against the idea that the complete lack of such clear wording* in bestow power means the same thing; if they wanted to word "you have to transfer extra pp after manifesting cost", they evidently knew how to do it.

*That is, not that bestow power lacks clarity in its wording, but it lacks any clear wording that could support your reading. Wording such as "When you manifest this power, a number of power points you designate flows from each participant into a collective pool" or "All participants who leave before a metaconcert ends or is dismissed reclaim a number of power points equal to the current power point pool divided by the number of members. If the conductor drops out, the power ends. That same number of points is removed from the power point pool."

[Segev]

You link your mind with another psionic creature’s mind, creating a brief conduit through which mental energy can be shared. When you manifest this power, the subject gains up to 2 power points. You can transfer only as many power points to a subject as it has manifester levels.

Because of the intimate nature of this power, it cannot be fabricated into a psionic item—only power points generated by a psionic creature in the moment can be shared using bestow power.

Augment

For every 3 additional power points you spend, the subject gains 2 additional power points. I have to agree that there is no additional cost beyond those listed. You spend 3 pp for every 2 pp the target gains.

Let me break it down sentence by sentence to illustrate why.


You link your mind with another psionic creature’s mind, creating a brief conduit through which mental energy can be shared.This opening sentence is mostly fluff, defining what the power does. Mechanically, it does establish that your minds are linked, and that mental energy is "shared." The text goes on to explain how this works in the rest of the power.


When you manifest this power, the subject gains up to 2 power points.This sentence is the core of the mechanics of this power. It states quite clearly what the primary mechanism is: you manifest this power, and the subject gains 2 power points. Of particular note, it states that the subject gains "up to 2 power points." That "up to" is important because it relates to the next sentence.


You can transfer only as many power points to a subject as it has manifester levels.This sentence establishes the limit that makes "up to" meaningful in the last sentence. Manifesting the power costs you 3pp, no matter whether the target gains 0, 1, or 2 pp. The mechanics of the power have yet to state that you lose the "up to 2 pp" that the target gains (and don't ever say so later). So it's not like the target gaining 0 or 1 pp is better for the manifester than the target gaining 2 pp would be. Because there's no cost-savings to the manifester in the target gaining fewer than 2 pp, there must be some other reason for it to be "up to" 2 pp, not merely exactly 2 pp.

That reason is this sentence: the target cannot gain more pp than he has ML. So transferring to a level 1 manifester transfers only 1 pp. Transferring to a character with no ML...well, you just wasted 3 pp manifesting this power.


Because of the intimate nature of this power, it cannot be fabricated into a psionic item—only power points generated by a psionic creature in the moment can be shared using bestow power.This means you can't make a Power Stone that, when activated, grants a target 2 pp. Power stones, djores, and psicrowns are not meant to be power transfer/storage devices that store raw pp. That's what Cognizance Crystals are for. (In fact, you can use a cognizance crystal to effectively give 1:1 pp to another person, as long as they manifest out of the crystal's pool alone.)

And this sentence also prevents explicitly the creation of, say, a command-activated Universal Psionic Item or the like that grants pp at will.


For every 3 additional power points you spend, the subject gains 2 additional power points.This is the augmentation rule. It again uses the language of the primary mechanic sentence in the power: for every 3 power points you spend, the subject gains 2 pp.

Note that it doesn't say, "For every 3 pp you spend, you may transfer 2 additional pp to the subject," nor does it say, "...you may lose up to 2 more pp that the subject gains," nor any other such permutation of the language.



The mechanics of this power effect the transfer of pp from you to your target by you paying the cost of the power (3pp, plus augmentation) and your target gaining 2 pp (plus another 2 pp per time you augment the power).

Both times it spells out the effects of the power on the subject, it simply says they gain pp. It doesn't say you lose any extra on top of what you spent to manifest and augment the power.