Using UA to balance Psionics in 3.5?

[Oontarg]

Hello, haven't posted in a while.

DM Question. Is it possible to balance Psionics by making Arcane/Divine Spellcasters use, Unearthed Arcana's spell points variant(pg. 153)? Should i just use Psionics Handbook, 3.0 material (around when UA was out, so Possible balance) or should i use Expanded Psionics Handbook with all the 3.5 Psionics Material?

There is a different number of spell points per day and bonus for ability than the number of psionic power points per day bonus for ability. Does anyone think it is possible to figure out an appropriate balance by +/- spell points or +/- power point so that the number of Powers/Spells per day is the same? That is if Arcane/Divine spells are equal to Psionic powers.

If I used the Erudite spell to power Online variant and then gave Spellcasters a homebrew variant that allowed Psionic power to spell, would that work as well?

Thanks

[Pluto!]

Psionics is weaker than normal casters.
UA Spell Points make casters stronger than normal casters.

3.0 Psionics were a really clumsy and inconsistently balanced system, 3.5 is very well designed.

I would use 3.5 Psionics, no question, and would make bigger overhauls to the magic system in order to balance (Beguiler style casting from limited lists for every casting class would be a good place to start).

[Troacctid]

Wizards, Clerics, Druids, and Archivists are all stronger than Psions to begin with, and spell points are a gigantic buff to them, so it would pretty much do the exact opposite of balancing them against psionics.

Using 3.0 psionics should be right out. That system was a mess.

[SovelsAtaask]

Are you just assuming psionics are better or overpowered because they're different? I've seen lots of people make that assumption.

[Eldaran]

I suggest reading this classic thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?444945-Myth-The-XPH-is-overpowered), it addresses most of the issues people seem to have with psionics.

[Fizban]

The problem with using spell points without changing the spells is that powers are written correctly for it and spells are not.

The solution is to convert every spell into a proper spell point spell, which will take a lot of work because you really can't just wing it. Luckily, after ages of people talking about it someone did the work*, here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?194002-3-5-A-Translation-of-Vancian-Spellcasting-to-Psionic-Mechanics). I've read a bit of it, seemed find up to that point and it'll be a lot easier writing a change list based on his work than doing it all from scratch yourself. It's probably just the PHB but hey that's literally the core spells and will give you a much better base for letting people wing it on other spells.

*Well plenty of others might have also done it but this is the one I've seen.

[StreamOfTheSky]

DM Question. Is it possible to balance Psionics by making Arcane/Divine Spellcasters use, Unearthed Arcana's spell points variant(pg. 153)?

Rather than screaming a "big NO" in bold, I'll just leave this here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=15043304&postcount=32) and move on...

[Tohsaka Rin]

Really, what psychic classes have going for them is less power, but more overall fuel efficiency.

A Psion and a Wizard can both fireball, but the Psion can pay less to deal less damage.

On the other hand, a Wizard is always at maximum output, a Psion has to pay more to get more out of any power.

Wizards can also stack metamagic. Psions have a VERY hard time pulling off tricks like that, due to having to regain psionic focus, have only one at a given time, have to pay a feat to gain a means of holding a second, paying actions to regain said focus...

Honestly, metamagic alone is almost an unfair advantage compared to metapsionics.

[Dunsparce]

Are you just assuming psionics are better or overpowered because they're different? I've seen lots of people make that assumption.

From what I understand Psionics were extremely overpowered in 1st edition, and because of that they seem to have this stigma of being OP still even though it is overall weaker than vancian casting in later editions.

[Oontarg]

Great, thank all you posters!

In the second part of my First post I mentioned adding(+) or subtracting(-) Power Points and Spell Points to achieve the balance I want for the game. The way i attain balance, by making the Spell/Power Points available per Casting/Manifesting level different based on keeping the total Spells/Powers per day the same or close. Or you could say that by changing the Power Points per day and Spell points per day that the total power Powers per day and the total Spells per day are around the same. Good math Is all i need to get this balance. But does anyone have any good ideas on this idea? Is this a good idea?

I like the spell points variant (UA) so i want to use it. As a DM, all i have to do is take away all of the Metamagic feats that the players can have. Just get rid of Metamagic, all Metamagic does is make spellcasting more complex and give the the players access to shenanigans. As a DM, isn't that a good thing? Also does this help me attain what I want, "balance"?

I like the fact that each player has a pool of numbers that i can track like hit points. So by doing this i can keep track easily how much a player can use magic per day, or when the party is low on Magic, just like when a party is low on HP. By keeping track of Spell/Power points i can also watch for cheating or mistakes. Also as DM i can change the "Magic" pools of players any way i chose, whenever i chose. Is this a smart idea?

Thanks

[Tohsaka Rin]

I think if you have a different problem entirely from balance, if you're worried about watching out for cheating.

Radically changing the way casting works, and taking away metamagic will likely (not for certain, but quite possibly) just upset/annoy your players.

Are you worried about balance because you want a level playing field between players, or are you aiming for balance because you reduce the overall power your players have access to?

[Troacctid]

If you use spell points, you need to change it so that prepared casters still prepare their spells in advance instead of casting spontaneously. It's just unfair otherwise.

[LTwerewolf]

Awhile ago I saw the spell point system and thought "well I like the way psionics works, so this just makes normal magic like that." I was disappointed in the result, because it threw the entire balance of power out of wack, giving prepared casters ridiculous levels of ability in exchange for making their spells even easier to access and somehow calling that a penalty. Vancian casting is a mess and in my games we're on the verge of abolishing it altogether.

[Fizban]

Good math Is all i need to get this balance. But does anyone have any good ideas on this idea? Is this a good idea?
Incorrect. A large part of the balancing systems with vancian (spell slot) casting are the hard limits on spells of each level. No matter what level they are, a vancian caster has only so many spells at their highest level, a couple more at the next level down, and so on. Any sort of spell point system that removes that hard limit without changing the spells themselves will make spellcasters more powerful.

Reducing the spell points to the point where a caster only has enough for that top tier of spells and nothing else will result in far fewer points than a Psion, drastically reducing the caster's utility and just generally frustrating everyone (including you, once you try to use a spellcasting NPC and find they can't do squat). It is an inherent assumption that as you level up with power points/spell points you will be able to cast more stuff at the same relative power level than you used to, as in: I can cast X spells at full power now, later I should be able to cast X+more spells at full power when I'm higher level, which is incompatible with the design of vancian spells. (This is also why some people think even 3.5 psionics is broken, because a manifester can run at full power all the time-but limitations on many powers and restricted powers known make this less impressive.) A "spell point" system that includes hard limits on how many spells you can cast of each level is just a spell slot system with even more busywork.

So I recommend again that you check out Ernir's A Translation of Vancian Spellcasting to Psionic Mechanics (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?194002-3-5-A-Translation-of-Vancian-Spellcasting-to-Psionic-Mechanics), rather than simply throwing numbers around, though I will also reiterate that I can't vouch for the whole thing since I haven't read that far. Or just switch to psionics-only.

I'll also chime in with the "why are you worried about cheating and arbitrarily modifying your player's spell points?" It's not any harder to keep a tally of how many spells of what level are cast than it is to track an exact count of spell points and augmentations. Hit points should be going up and down all day and aren't a good indicator of anything other than weather or not a character can survive a given round, while spell or power points will be going down at varying rates all day depending on what happens. Just because a character's still got points left doesn't mean they're good for another fight, and being low on points doesn't always mean they're done-you have to understand the whole situation.