Are psions in PF overpowered?

[Calthropstu]

With twin power still existing in the psionics system while its companion twin spell was removed, and the sheer number of damage type targets (Cha, str, fire, cold, sonic, electric, slashing, untyped etc) as well as the reduced cost of metapsionic (empower only raises psionics 2 power points while a spell is raised 2 levels) and the fact they can upgrade almost all of their damage types without limit (except their CL) I feel psions may actually be overpowered.

I ran some calculations and was able to get a wilder to autodrop nearly anything in the game not immune to mind affecting.
The power ego-whip deals 1d4 cha damage for 3 power points. It adds an additional 1d4 per 4 power points.
A 7th level wilder/9th level psi-crystal imprinter has CL 19 when surging. With +1 from a psi crystal stone and another +1 from a ioun stone, we are sitting at 21. Now spend a round charging up twin power (for free due to imprinter) and add empower and maximize for a cost of 6 power points. We are looking at 15 power after reducing it for maximize and empower. That is 3 + 4 + 4 + 4 for a total of 4 dice. Maximized to 4. Empowered to 6. 6*4 = 24. Twinned means * 2 so we are sitting on 48 cha damage. Save for half still drops almost anything instantly. Fail the save and it's bye bye gold dragon great wyrm. Hell, that puts a gold dragon great wyrm down to 2 cha. Solar goes down to 1 cha.
And that is not the only ability that gets ridiculous. A fire blast from this deals 300 damage. Or you can use cold for the same amount, bypassing evasion by targeting fort save.

And that's the tip of the iceberg. Between that and decerberate (which can only be defended by locking yourself from the astral plane) and the high abusability of astral construct and a myriad of other things, it just seems to me that the psion has some really nasty toys that other classes can barely begin to duplicate.

[Psyren]

They're still T2, if that's how you define "overpowered." The ceiling is lower because there's no StP Erudite to chirurgery a bunch of arcane-spells-as-powers from, but yes, they can handle anything in the Bestiary. Also, because UMD covers both magic and psionic items in PF and cross-class skills aren't a thing, you can max that out easily and pack some wands etc.

Wilders meanwhile are much stronger than they were in 3.5; I'd probably put them at T2 now too (especially the Student Wilder, Artificer Wilder, Warrior Wilder and a few others.)

[Rynjin]

For one thing...none of the classes mentioned here are the Psion.

For two, I'm not entirely certain you can actually expend your Psionic Focus multiple times in the same round.

For three, common mistake, Maximize and Empower don't interact that way, quite. You get your 16 flat, then you ROLL 4d4, halve that number, and add it to the total. So you could be doing anywhere between 18 and 24, not 24 guaranteed.

For four, nothing here sounds particularly insane for a level 16 caster. You can multi-Metamagic the save or die of your choice as a Wizard or whatever and get a similar effect. Icy Prison is a decent example; a Persistent Icy Prison kills almost anything, no muss no fuss and targets the most common Poor save in the game.

For five, this is a mind-affecting ability. That should be self-explanatory.

For six, a Solar is immune to Ego Whip due to it being a spell/power lower than 4th level.

For seven, the other options mentioned have their own flaws. Energy damage isn't really that impressive, particularly when an Arcane caster can deal similar damage AND ALSO make their opponent skip a turn with Dazing Spell. Decerebrate is quite close range and Fort negates.

For eight, didn't you say this takes a round to charge up? It takes 2 Full Round Actions right? If you're skipping a turn, you've lost Rocket Tag.

[Aotrs Commander]

I think this is an Ego Whip problem, not a psion/wilder problem.

The Mental Ability-Damage Rays (spells and powes both) have always been a problematic, and Ego Whip more than most, since it does a lot of damage to what is the dump state for most non-Charisma-based NPCs. (Heck, Phantasmal Assailants in 3.5 is capable of one-hit-ko-ing dudes with 8 Wis damage, with only it's double-save stopping that being insanely good.)

I flat-nerfed Ray of Stupidity to not let you reduce the score below one, because I was not willing to let people no-sell animal encounters past level 3 (I actually wanted animals to be, y'know, dangerous for a fair bit longer).

I think the problem is far less with psions than Ego Whip is just too easy to abuse even BEFORE meta-psionic powers come into play

(okay mid post edit, for some reason, I'd got it into my head it was 3D4 base (in 3.5), and it's only 1D4 to start with, I must have been thinking of when I last used it (on the PCs, which must have been mindflayers or aboleth of something where it was auotmatically at ML 11)

where was I, yeah, because unlike Wis and Int, Cha is often a really conveniant dump start, especially for NPC fighters (and in general, it they're on a point-buy system), Ego Whip is an on-average comfortable OHKO past ML11 on a lot of stuff that's not Charisma based, for like, the rest of the time.

Of course, de-tune it too much and it's totally useless. (You can argue, even, Ego Whip is ALREADY almost useless before ML 11 (so no-one would take it if you made it not-augmentable), though I would say that in my own experience, combats lasting 2-3 rounds in enough for basic Ego Whip to do its work on SOMETHING reasonably.

I have been looking at this with my Lurk upgrade (in which I toned the metal damage one back, because the ability damage was so good, I couldn't think of a reason NOT to do it an nothing else, and even toned back to +1 point/3PP instead of /2, it's probably still the go-to augment); I'm not sure there IS a balance point to mental ability damage not being either basically useless or far too powerful, given that, unlike the physicals, it has such a narrow range.



Maybe (not that I'm even proposing it's be something I'd do), you'd have to look at the tacit admission that Ray of Enfeeblement is right, Str damage would be too good and you have to make it all ability penalties instead (as at least then it can be dispelled or something), which is a slight balance, kinda.)



Given how much the Wilder was terrible in 3.x (even the UT version was only a bit on an improvement?), I think that it being actually closer to competative with the psion is not a bad thing, since it means someone might actually fancy PLAYING one, like, maybe ever, now.

[Jack_Simth]

They're still T2, if that's how you define "overpowered." The ceiling is lower because there's no StP Erudite to chirurgery a bunch of arcane-spells-as-powers from, but yes, they can handle anything in the Bestiary.Psychic Reformation doesn't even cost XP anymore. At 7th when you can first get it, you can change your powers known regularly for some scaling penalties. At 13th, the only penalty is spent power points. The library of effects they have access to is smaller... but at this point, it's still a larger library than the Core spell list, and Wizards are T-1 with just the PHB.

[Willie the Duck]

I think this is an Ego Whip problem, not a psion/wilder problem.

The Mental Ability-Damage Rays (spells and powes both) have always been a problematic, and Ego Whip more than most, since it does a lot of damage to what is the dump state for most non-Charisma-based NPCs. (Heck, Phantasmal Assailants in 3.5 is capable of one-hit-ko-ing dudes with 8 Wis damage, with only it's double-save stopping that being insanely good.)

Agreed. Or heck, make it more general and say that the 3e decision to use ability scores as 6 additional 'HP-like' tracks one has to defend (and the only defenses being a high score or total immunity to ability damage) was a design decision with some far-reaching consequences. Dragons and whatever that Dex-damage spell is being a good non-psionic example.

[Calthropstu]

For one thing...none of the classes mentioned here are the Psion.

For two, I'm not entirely certain you can actually expend your Psionic Focus multiple times in the same round.

For three, common mistake, Maximize and Empower don't interact that way, quite. You get your 16 flat, then you ROLL 4d4, halve that number, and add it to the total. So you could be doing anywhere between 18 and 24, not 24 guaranteed.

For four, nothing here sounds particularly insane for a level 16 caster. You can multi-Metamagic the save or die of your choice as a Wizard or whatever and get a similar effect. Icy Prison is a decent example; a Persistent Icy Prison kills almost anything, no muss no fuss and targets the most common Poor save in the game.

For five, this is a mind-affecting ability. That should be self-explanatory.

For six, a Solar is immune to Ego Whip due to it being a spell/power lower than 4th level.

For seven, the other options mentioned have their own flaws. Energy damage isn't really that impressive, particularly when an Arcane caster can deal similar damage AND ALSO make their opponent skip a turn with Dazing Spell. Decerebrate is quite close range and Fort negates.

For eight, didn't you say this takes a round to charge up? It takes 2 Full Round Actions right? If you're skipping a turn, you've lost Rocket Tag.

Yes, this trick takes 2 full rounds to cast but can be done via relative safety and then your friendly caster can teleport you in or you can be invisible or sanctuaried or whatever. Yes, you can only expend your psionic focus once. But a feat allows you to also focus your psi-crystal getting the 2nd needed for this trick.
Properly buffed, you can laugh at most attempts to rocket tag you. I got a psions ac into the mid 60s and his saves into the mid 30s with a concentration check of +40 and 30 resist all elements.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Yes, this trick takes 2 full rounds to cast but can be done via relative safety and then your friendly caster can teleport you in or you can be invisible or sanctuaried or whatever. Yes, you can only expend your psionic focus once. But a feat allows you to also focus your psi-crystal getting the 2nd needed for this trick.
Properly buffed, you can laugh at most attempts to rocket tag you. I got a psions ac into the mid 60s and his saves into the mid 30s with a concentration check of +40 and 30 resist all elements.
So you're spending two rounds, 15 pp, one of your allies' actions, nine PrC levels, four feats, two magic items worth 40 800 gp (one of which lasts 10 mins/day), and sixteen class levels to get a no-save-just-die that doesn't work against targets immune to mind-affecting spells or ability damage, can fail against SR, and has a 15% chance to enervate you, and then you're complaining that a different class than the one that did that is overpowered because of it?

And the whole point of rocket tag is that for all your AC and saves and resistances, the person to go first is going to manifest temporal acceleration and spend some rounds altering terrain/casting buffs/summoning allies that are going to make it impossible for you to take your next turn. Temporal acceleration being, incidentally, a good place to cast your ego whip from, but that does add 15 pp to the overall cost.

[Silvercrys]

Yeah we can do as good or better with first party only; using a Crossblooded Orc/Draconic Sorcerer, regular old metamagic reduction traits, Spell Perfection and Magic Trick: Fireball, you can make an Empowered, Blissful, Widened, Cluster Bombs, Concentrated Fire Fireball deal 5d6+15 damage per 2 caster levels out of 3rd level Sorcerer slots for a cool 15*5d6+15 if you pump your caster level to 30 (Spell Spec, Orange Stone, Regalia of Heaven, Blazing Robes, Altar of Nethys) to a single 5 foot square. That's, uh... 75d6+255*1.5 (Ref Half) per 3rd level slot at level 20, or about 535 average damage on a failed save? Or make it real silly, you can get Fireball on the Oracle spell list a few ways and do Sorc 1/Oracle 4/Mystic Theruge 10/Oracle 5 and use Spell Synthesis to cast it twice (though your Sorc Fireballs do a bit less damage, granted, should still be like 800+ average though and you have a ton of spell slots). Can even swap Blissful for Elemental Spell, though you lose a bit of raw damage because you can't use the Scepter/Crown/Orb of Heaven on it so you lose three caster levels.

All depends on your player's optimization level; if you have a Wilder optimizing Ego Whip in a party of Fighters taking Skill Focus: Stealth and Core Rogues using one Rapier to fight with, yeah, you should probably tell the Wilder to not do that (or just ban T2+ classes). The problem is that even within Core-only the balance point at level 20 is wildly different between martial classes and casters, so yeah, Psionics are "broken" compared to a Fighter 20, but so is Wizard 20, and I don't think an optimized psion or wilder is actually stronger than a Sorcerer 20 or a Wizard 20 or whatever and the casters are closer to the power level Dreamscarred Press was aiming for.

[Aotrs Commander]

Agreed. Or heck, make it more general and say that the 3e decision to use ability scores as 6 additional 'HP-like' tracks one has to defend (and the only defenses being a high score or total immunity to ability damage) was a design decision with some far-reaching consequences. Dragons and whatever that Dex-damage spell is being a good non-psionic example.

Yeah. I don't dislike the idea conceptually - certainly not enough to go through the game and take them all out - I think it DOES work well enough for the physical stats (do a degree, Shivering-Touch-making-the-ban-list-pre-emptively, lookin' at you...), but with the mental ones being much less combat-important for monster and NPC noncasters in particular), those are the ones the flaws in the idea particularly show.

[Rynjin]

Yes, this trick takes 2 full rounds to cast but can be done via relative safety and then your friendly caster can teleport you in or you can be invisible or sanctuaried or whatever. Yes, you can only expend your psionic focus once. But a feat allows you to also focus your psi-crystal getting the 2nd needed for this trick.

I know you can GET multiple Psi Focuses, you can get up to about 4 at any given time. But if you can't EXPEND more than one at a time, you can't both Empower and Maximize via this method, since both require you to expend Psi Focus on manifesting.


Properly buffed, you can laugh at most attempts to rocket tag you. I got a psions ac into the mid 60s and his saves into the mid 30s with a concentration check of +40 and 30 resist all elements.

Sources?

[EisenKreutzer]

In general psionics is more balanced than standard vancian casters, because of the mechanics of power points.
Can you create cheesy, super optimized characters with it? Hell yes, but as has been mentioned upthread you can do that with regular old Core book only spell casters too.

This is a symptom of the original 3rd edition design, not DSPs version of psionics. The balance points are off to begin with, and that effect trickles down to any subsystem in Pathfinder that doesn’t alter the base assumptions of the system. For an example of a subsystem that does this, take a look at Spheres of Power.

[exelsisxax]

I know you can GET multiple Psi Focuses, you can get up to about 4 at any given time. But if you can't EXPEND more than one at a time, you can't both Empower and Maximize via this method, since both require you to expend Psi Focus on manifesting.


Can you support this claim? Metapsionics just requires you to spend extra PP and expend focus to use the feat. I've never read nor heard of any such restriction on being able to expend focus. If you have 2 focus(and you definitely can't ever get 4) you can expend both if you can pay the costs of 2 metapsionics.

[SimonMoon6]

Another thing to be aware of:

While Pathfinder (1e) made sure to seriously nerf any of the "change into a monster and be awesome" spells and abilities, the psionic power "true mindswitch" still exists in Pathfinder's psionics (which are third party rules, if I understand correctly). So, there's another area where a legacy ability from 3.0/3.5 is at odds with the design goals of Pathfinder. (Which is also, by the way, a reason I really like the idea of someday playing either a psionic or someone capable of using psionic devices in Pathfinder.)

[Rynjin]

Can you support this claim? Metapsionics just requires you to spend extra PP and expend focus to use the feat. I've never read nor heard of any such restriction on being able to expend focus. If you have 2 focus(and you definitely can't ever get 4) you can expend both if you can pay the costs of 2 metapsionics.

The part that supports my stance is that the rules never say you can expend focus more than once; Pathfinder is a permissive ruleset, not a restrictive one. "The rules don't say I CAN'T" doesn't fly.

BUT, admittedly, the rules for Psionic Focus are pretty vague, and it may very well be the intent that you can. It doesn't take an action, and is performed "as part of an action", but the core PF rules precedent for those abilities isn't really there for activating multiple abilities like that in a round.

I did make a mistake on the 4 Psi Focuses thing (I forgot Deep Focus and Psicrystal Containment don't stack) but I'm still fairly certain you can get a third from a class or PrC ability somewhere, I just can't find it.

[AlienFromBeyond]

it may very well be the intent that you can
It is, it's been FAQ'd. You just have to obey the rules of psionic focus, can only expend a focus for a single effect, and can't double up on the same effect by using two separate focuses. There's no kind of "once per round" or "once per action" limitation on psionic focuses, only the limit of how many you have to use in the first place.

[Rynjin]

It is, it's been FAQ'd. You just have to obey the rules of psionic focus, can only expend a focus for a single effect, and can't double up on the same effect by using two separate focuses. There's no kind of "once per round" or "once per action" limitation on psionic focuses, only the limit of how many you have to use in the first place.

Cool cool.

So it definitely WORKS, I just stand by "it's cool, but not that impressive in the grand scheme for a full caster".