What can't psionics do? [PF]

[Milo v3]

With one of the settings I'm working on I was planning on removing vancian casting with psionics, what aspects of magic can't psionics replicate or cannot replicate well?

[ahenobarbi]

Healing, and removing various statuses (blindness, ability drain / damage, negative levels, poisons etc.) is much harder with psionics.

[The Glyphstone]

Traditionally, psionics is very bad at boosting/buffing people other than the caster - nearly every psionic equivalent to an arcane or divine buff spell is Personal range. Even the Vitalist can only really heal or give minor buffs through its collective.

[facelessminion]

While base psions have a bit more difficulty healing in Pathfinder, it's worth noting that a Vitalist is flat out the best healing class in the game, able to leverage the action economy very well.

[Ilorin Lorati]

That's mostly because it had to be the best healing class in the game in order to actually be effective at that niche.

[Psyren]

Psionic healing in PF is fine, even without Vitalist. Psion and Wilder both have healing-focused paths, and there is more status detection/removal than there was in 3.5.

What they are still bad at is illusion and necromancy. The first they kind of have to be bad at, because psionics is hard enough to notice as it is without everyone running around invisible or using images. The latter is being addressed with the upcoming Seventh Path supplement.

[Eldaran]

Tacticians makes great buffers, Vitalists are as said great healers. There is a lack of condition removal though, psionics has no way to deal with fear and the psionic equivalent of the Heal spell comes without all the awesome condition removal that gives.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Not really familiar with Tacticians or Vitalist, but I've been lead to believe that the main reason for their success in healing/buffing is because the collective mechanic allows them to target other people even if the power itself wouldn't normally be able to. Is that right or did DSP changed the powers so Psionics aren't as egoistical as they were before.

Anyway I think that adding an augment option to target other people with powers such as Body Adjustment might be enough.

[Psyren]

Tacticians makes great buffers, Vitalists are as said great healers. There is a lack of condition removal though, psionics has no way to deal with fear and the psionic equivalent of the Heal spell comes without all the awesome condition removal that gives.

There are few defenses against fear specifically, but plenty against mind-affecting effects or that boost your will save, which should cover most of them.

As for conditions - Cleanse Body, Cleanse Spirit, and Empathic Condition Relief handle most of them.


Not really familiar with Tacticians or Vitalist, but I've been lead to believe that the main reason for their success in healing/buffing is because the collective mechanic allows them to target other people even if the power itself wouldn't normally be able to. Is that right or did DSP changed the powers so Psionics aren't as egoistical as they were before.

Anyway I think that adding an augment option to target other people with powers such as Body Adjustment might be enough.

Vitalists can mostly ignore range, yes. Egoists and Wilders gain options that let them target others with the self-targeting stuff as you mentioned.

[Ilorin Lorati]

The only thing I know of that lets Wilders heal others outside of the handful of powers that do is their Surge Bond, which is just HP equal to their wild surge value, as long as it's already a power of the healing subdiscipline. Most of them don't work with other people, and of the ones that do the only one I know of that actually heals before the surge bond effect is Heal Injuries - which is a 6th level power (there's also a 9th level Egotist power, but that's not available to Wilders at all).

Egotist makes for an alright healer after 8 because of Shared Effect, at least.

[Psyren]

Healing Surge Wilders get bonus (healing) powers for free - which includes the status removal powers I mentioned earlier like Cleanse Spirit, many of which can natively be used on others. For the ones that can't, like Resist Toxin, they can go with the old psionic standby of Empathic Transfer to "eat" one from someone else, followed by curing themselves. More involved than a cleric or druid - sure, but the end result is the same.

There is also the Contemplative Wilder, who can rotate situational powers each day as needed, e.g. picking up Aura Alteration to remove a geas.

[Ilorin Lorati]

I forgot about empathetic transfer, but that's still 6/7th level minimum for Wilder though. A character shouldn't be able to not do their job for a quarter of a career.

[Psyren]

I forgot about empathetic transfer, but that's still 6/7th level minimum for Wilder though. A character shouldn't be able to not do their job for a quarter of a career.

Clerics don't get Neutralize Poison until 7th level either. Are they not healers?

Before those levels, you can simply rely on Heal checks and Cleanse Body to keep your charge alive.

[Chris Robin R2]

Physical effects? I remember when I was playing a psion how frustrated I was that certain things like the psionic version of invisibility were mind-affecting. Mainly annoying because I was fighting undead.

I was also annoyed at how the disciplines sectioned off my power list so much harsher than spell schools do, forcing me to specialize even when I wanted a generalist. I didn't find psionics to be a very good replacement for spell slots. Which is sad, because I've never seen a good spell point system for PF I've really liked.

[Ilorin Lorati]

Psyren: that's false equivalence - a cleric can heal from first level, in multiple (3 as I count) ways if they want to focus on it. A wilder either has to: waste PP healing themselves to heal another member of their party for 1 HP, wait until 4th level to heal something other than HP (Cleanse Body) in order to heal for 2 HP, or wait for level 6 for Empathic Healing. Yes, HP healing is the weakest thing you can do - but when it comes to saving lives, 1-2 HP isn't likely to do it, especially not at such horrible PP efficiency.

The Heal skill can't be used effectively in the middle of a battle to save lives, and Wilder can't adequately psionically heal in an emergency - which is the only kind that really matters. Maybe there'll be a Surge Augment in the upcoming Wilder supplement that will give Natural Healing the ability to target other people, but as it stands right now I think what you're calling good enough isn't even close.

Back on topic though, there's a relative lack of powers that can be used for resurrection - there's Psionic Revivify, which has a limit on the time since death, and Reality Revision, which is a 9th level power. I don't think there's anything in between in the Seventh Path - I remember looking and not finding anything permanent.

[Psyren]

It's not a false equivalence at all. Removing poison is rarely something you have to do in the middle of a fight, and a properly built PF wilder can heal hit points in combat just fine. Share Pain, Empathic Condition Relief and Cleanse Body are all 2nd-level powers, and once you get Empathic Transfer they can heal just fine. Yeah, the Cleric is better at tit, but I wouldn't want the wilder to beat a divine caster at healing anyway. But your claims of "a quarter of their career not being able to do their job" are really overblown.

[Ilorin Lorati]

I'm not saying Wilder should be as good as Cleric at it - a character that wants to be as good as Cleric at it has Vitalist or Tactician. I just fundamentally disagree with any thought process that says it's fine that they can't do it at levels 1-3, and really crappy until level 6 because they're fine after that.

That's one of the things I hated most about 3.5 - and the reason why I play Pathfinder, because Archetypes are a thing that mean you no longer have to play for months before you can do what you created a character to do.

[Anlashok]

That's one of the things I hated most about 3.5 - and the reason why I play Pathfinder, because Archetypes are a thing that mean you no longer have to play for months before you can do what you created a character to do.

Funny, I always found PF to have the opposite problem. Paizo's obsession with making dips bad lead to a lot of miserable backloading. Having your Zen Archer be functionally nonfuctional for a quarter of society play isn't much fun.

[Ilorin Lorati]

Anlashok: That's a specific, anecdotal example that I'm not sure holds up - I assume you're talking about Zen Archery? Is Zen Archer nonfunctional because they have a 1-3 point lower attack bonus until 3? They can still make their flurry of blows with a bow as of level 1, which means they can still do what they want - use a bow as a monk. It seems more akin to most TWF characters needing to make a choice between TWF and Weapon Finesse until 3rd level.

In comparison, if there was a PrC in 3.5 that allowed a Monk to use a bow with Flurry, the monk would have been stuck in melee or with a shuriken until at least 5th level, and wouldn't have even had the option to use a bow at all until then.

[Psyren]

I'm not saying Wilder should be as good as Cleric at it - a character that wants to be as good as Cleric at it has Vitalist or Tactician. I just fundamentally disagree with any thought process that says it's fine that they can't do it at levels 1-3, and really crappy until level 6 because they're fine after that.

That's one of the things I hated most about 3.5 - and the reason why I play Pathfinder, because Archetypes are a thing that mean you no longer have to play for months before you can do what you created a character to do.

Well again, if you want to do it from level 1 Egoist can do that. Wilder is a secondary choice at best, I agree, but the point is that it's doable - much like blasting with a bard is doable, but it's not really what you go to the class for. And few games unless they're planning to be low-level stay at 1-3 for long anyway.


Funny, I always found PF to have the opposite problem. Paizo's obsession with making dips bad lead to a lot of miserable backloading. Having your Zen Archer be functionally nonfuctional for a quarter of society play isn't much fun.

You have a very odd idea of what constitutes "functional."

[Ilorin Lorati]

I'm not sure what you're talking about for Egotist - Natural Healing is more limited to them than it is to even Healing Surge Wilders, and there's no other 1st level healing power that I know of.

[malonkey1]

Reads title.

Places tongue firmly in cheek.

I dunno...make it as 1st-party material?

That said, I consider DSP material to be 1.5th party. It's great stuff. Especially Path of War.

[Milo v3]

Reads title.

Places tongue firmly in cheek.

I dunno...make it as 1st-party material?

That said, I consider DSP material to be 1.5th party. It's great stuff. Especially Path of War.

I'm pretty sure I read about paizo telling people to use DSP's psionics and used some of their psionics in an adventure path, so it may as well be 1st-party.

[Ilorin Lorati]

Well, it was used in the Dragons Demand module, which was large - but stand alone.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I've only seen use of psionic crystal as a weapon material so far; maybe one of the monsters that used them...

[JusticeZero]

The other thing Psionics has issues with is out of combat healing without a dedicated medic on staff. Much harder to get a party up and running if you haven't got a player who likes being the bandage, so expect a lot of "We go back to town and rent a room for a week while we heal up" every other encounter.