Psion Power Point Regeneration: Balanced?

[Avoraciopoctules]

Take a generic Psion or Wilder out of the SRD. Now subtract a feat and give it the ability to regain a number of spent PP equal to its character level every hour. How does this affect the balance of the class compared to other 3.x character options?

The most obvious effect is a virtual guarantee that the character will have at least one long-term buff active all the time. Depending on the power chosen, this could be very good or virtually worthless.

This also means that the character is encouraged to stretch out battles for as long as possible, making periodic strikes to exhaust the resources of limited casters.

Thoughts?

[KauTZ]

First thought, too much bookkeeping.

Second thought, just because psionics is not as strong as normal magic does not mean they are not a caster who can become way too powerful.

If you let a Wizard regenerate spell slots, he would destroy the game even earlier then before. Same thing with psionics.

[Maxus]

First thought, too much bookkeeping.

Second thought, just because psionics is not as strong as normal magic does not mean they are not a caster who can become way too powerful.

If you let a Wizard regenerate spell slots, he would destroy the game even earlier then before. Same thing with psionics.

I dunno. I like the idea, myself. Being able to regain spell slots/points at a fixed rate is interesting, and I'd like to tinker with the idea to see if something comes out...

[Username17]

I don't know why you think he wouldn't nova out and then wait for his power points to come back and then do it again. You're just reducing the time between his "daily" ass kicking.

-Username17

[Avoraciopoctules]

I don't know why you think he wouldn't nova out and then wait for his power points to come back and then do it again. You're just reducing the time between his "daily" ass kicking.

-Username17

I don't see anything preventing that from being a viable tactic. My primary goal is to incentivize casual use of powers and make a character that goes without 8-hour rests, but as written, this does still encourage nova tactics.

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Another change. The character does not gain any increase to PP from rest. This means that as they increase in level, it takes longer for them to fully rejuvenate. They start with only a few hours needed to recharge, and end needing around 9 at level 10. Existing powers could allow them to go without rest entirely.

[Psychic Robot]

Your name is too long, Avoraciopoctules. However, I think what you could do is divide up the psion's power points and have them regenerate. Make them per encounter or something--a psion has X PP per encounter. Once he spends it all, he's out until a) an hour passes, or b) he's on to the next encounter.

[NineInchNall]

Meh, just adapt the Warblade recovery mechanic to psionics.

Reduce the available PP per encounter to something allowing one or two of the highest available power level; e.g., 9-18 PP at level nine.

Swift+Standard action with no other power use that round to regain all encounter PP.

[Username17]

Another change. The character does not gain any increase to PP from rest. This means that as they increase in level, it takes longer for them to fully rejuvenate.

I am shocked and appalled that you or anyone would think this was a good idea under any circumstances.

Nothing says class like wine in a box. And nothing says legendary competence and power like taking longer to heal.

-Username17

[Maxus]

Yeah, taking longer to recover isn't good.

A flat percentage recovery would be better than that. In an hour, you get 25% back, after two hours you're at 60 or 75%, whatever. Point is, it's recovery rate which scales with your max PP (in the cast of the Psion).

[Aktariel]

The character does not gain any increase to PP from rest. This means that as they increase in level, it takes longer for them to fully rejuvenate. They start with only a few hours needed to recharge, and end needing around 9 at level 10.

Stop.

No, stop. This is not a good idea. While it takes away from the "5 minute workday" you are punishing people for leveling, since a lower level psion can adventure more frequently in a given 24 hour period, and you are simply incentivizing every single psion ever to take plane shift and then shift to a plane where time is faster relative to the Prime.

[CatharzGodfoot]

No, stop. This is not a good idea. While it takes away from the "5 minute workday" you are punishing people for leveling, since a lower level psion can adventure more frequently in a given 24 hour period, and you are simply incentivizing every single psion ever to take plane shift and then shift to a plane where time is faster relative to the Prime.

And why wouldn't a psion do this normally to get 8 hours of rest?

[Orion]

Another change. The character does not gain any increase to PP from rest. This means that as they increase in level, it takes longer for them to fully rejuvenate.

I am shocked and appalled that you or anyone would think this was a good idea under any circumstances.

Nothing says class like wine in a box. And nothing says legendary competence and power like taking longer to heal.

-Username17

I know you're being sarcastic, but this is actually true. Powerful people will often suffer wounds requiring whole centuries to recover from. Ordinary people don't -- they're either dead, crippled, or out for a few weeks.

[Kaelik]

This will go down in history as the most incredible screwing of tags ever. +1

[Draco_Argentum]

I think NIN has the better suggestion for most stuff. It falls down hard for anything with non combat utility though. A good fit for the psy war but a lot of work to retrofit to the psion in any sane way.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Hmm. The per-encounter limits could work in some games. My main problem with them is that a typical adventure in the setting I'm working with goes like the following:

1. Party hears about a barbarian invasion, volunteers to help the local city guard.
2. Party is told to locate a suitable ambush site ahead of the city and prepare the area for a trap that will slow the invaders long enough for reinforcements to arrive to protect the town.
3. Party spends a day organizing and arming a 30-40 person warband. Like the PCs and most other sentient humanoids all of these characters are level 4. This happens mostly in-character and consumes about one third of the playtime.
4. Warband departs and spends several days traveling until they find a suitable location.
5. Several sidequests are pursued to improve the odds while preparing the location. These range from social encounters with locals to construction and camouflage work to the pacification or trapping of monsters that will be unleashed on the invaders when they arrive. A small engagement with a warband of equal size. This is the most actual-time-consuming battle.
6. The slower city guard force arrives and reinforces their position. A bit more Logistics & Dragons ensues.
7. A mostly handwaved battle with the invaders. Character abilities are used, but very few dice are rolled.
8. An organized retreat, with efforts made to slow the progress of the enemy. Eventually, the retreat comes back to the city, where the reinforcements arrive. The enemy now retreats and the army follows. The PCs relax for a few days.

Kind of hard to break this into encounters.

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I should note that I actually like the idea of more powerful characters requiring more recharge/recovery time. This means that one psion can explain to another psion that even though she recharges more than twice as fast as he does, her psionic capacity is so great that she still takes much longer to fully restore her reserves.

Planes with accelerated time aren't a problem in my campaign. All I have are the four basic elemental planes, the ethereal plane, and a modified shadow plane with hidden links to other settings. I also cap character levels at 10 and have yet to play with PCs over 7.

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What about a split between per-day and per-encounter/hour pools? Since I flavor psions as characters that draw magical energy into their bodies from the radiation of special crystals and release it to produce effects, I could say that they have special crystal batteries that they charge with energy when they sleep.

[Kaelik]

I should note that I actually like the idea of more powerful characters requiring more recharge/recovery time. This means that one psion can explain to another psion that even though she recharges more than twice as fast as he does, her psionic capacity is so great that she still takes much longer to fully restore her reserves.

But what do you actually get from this?

More powerful Psions spend more time sitting around doing nothing. But because people only fight other people of their level, it means that low level Psions are all actiony and awesome, and old ones are all sagey and boring.

That's fine for Star Wars, where Yoda kicking ass would stall the hero's journey, but the point is, that it's not fun to play Yoda in an RPG if that's how it goes.

So all you are doing is telling your players that they don't want to level, because if they do, they become a boring plot character who sits around all the time while other people do cool stuff.

[Avoraciopoctules]

I think I understand now. We just consider different things fun. I view the idea of spending more time lounging about or finding miscellaneous tasks to do as my PC gets more psionic capacity with genuine enthusiasm.

Then again, I also had enormous fun in a freeform sci-fi game where I played a merchant captaining a small freighter and nothing happened. I seriously spent two and a half hours of play time trying to figure out what the ideal "Huzzah! We finished our first shipping mission!" gifts were for the other crew. My perspective here may be somewhat skewed.