Outer Dragons

[Manly Man]

Having just gotten my hands on a copy of Bestiary 4, I think I've fallen in love with the aforementioned outer dragons. They're like if you were to have taken the 3.5 dragons and left them in the Far Realm to stew in untruth and incomprehensibility for a few years, and I absolutely adore their alien fluff, making them seem more like an aberration than a dragon.

One trademark that aberrations had in 3.5, and at least in fluff, they also share it in Pathfinder, is that they have mind-warping powers that aren't quite synonymous with magic, nut are close, and because of that, the ones in 3.5 had a lot of options for psionics instead of magic. I'm wondering if it would be balanced to use DSP's psionics system to let them manifest as generalist Psions in place of their usual Sorcerer caster levels and use Charisma for the manifesting stat? It would certainly help in making them feel less like just another type of dragon, and make for a more unique experience with them.

[Sayt]

That doesn't sound too unbalanced, although Wilder would, I think ne a better analogue than Psion,

[Abd al-Azrad]

To be honest, the nature of a balance question comes down to whether X system itself is balanced or not. Psionics is renowned for being scary to face, due to its ability to basically supercharge its attacks and burn out quickly and gloriously.

I imagine this would make for some pretty terrifying encounters. Your Psionic Outer Dragons would be able to basically spam their highest-level attacks, over and over again, until the party puts them down. It will mean a faster, more brutal and costly fight than if said Outer Dragon was using many general spell choices.

All this said, all magic systems are frightfully powerful and terrifying when wielded by an experienced combatant. I believe the real question, for your game, will be: are you, as a DM, are skilled and comfortable enough with the Psionics system to make for a fun battle?

[Sayt]

Psionic is also often misunderstood, especially the clause preventing spending more power points on a power than your Manifester level.

For instance, a Young Time Dragon is CR 11 and only has a ML of 1, meaning it can only spend one pp per power, meaning a Psion of the same CR could outspend the Dragon by about 10-11 points per round.

[Abd al-Azrad]

Excellent point, Sayt. It might be a good call to give your Psionic Outer Dragons the means to increase their manifester level, such as Overchannel (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/feats/overchannel-psionic).

Which actually reminds me that, using Psionics, you can open up a range of Psionic combat feats which could make your Outer Dragons quite scary melee combatants as well. Deep Impact (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/feats/deep-impact-psionic) combined with a Vital Strike dragon bite and full Power Attack, for instance, could be a quite nasty thing with which to smack a PC on a Flyby Attack (as DM, I recommend you swap the Psionic Weapon prereq with Psionic Fist (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/feats/psionic-fist-psionic) - basically identical, but it actually applies its minor damage bonus to your Outer Dragon's natural weaponry). Power Channeler (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/feats/power-channeler-psionic) is very similar to the Spellstrike Magus ability, in psionic feat form.

[Manly Man]

Sounding like great ideas so far, especially with the Overchannel bit; they, as dragons, have more than enough hit points to spare for that, considering their HD is two dice above the damage they take in using the feat.

There is one thing I'm wondering, and it's that, if they're going to be getting manifester levels just from upping their HD, would it be fair to give them Wild Talent as a racial bonus feat? Wile it would be fitting in terms of fluff, since the psionics come to them naturally, and therefore it would make sense to emphasize their innate talents, but it also allows them to get psionic feats from the get-go, which would add a bit more difficulty for the players, though how much depends on the optimization in terms of feat choice.

EDIT: Also, I went and looked it up, and there is a Deep Impact feat for natural attacks, called Unavoidable Strike. Same thing, just with Psionic Fist instead of Psionic Weapon.