Complete Psionic, Worth It?

[Oberoni]

So you people know I'm a Psionics fetishist, right? Let's get that out of the way right now. I love psionics.

Ok.

Complete Psionics came out recently. I've read some mixed reviews. Is it worth picking up? If so, why?

[Neeek]

Well, the PrCs are pretty weak. The base classes are kinda cool. The Divine Mind is similar to a Marshal, only the DM actually can also do stuff on his own. I'm not convinced the Lurk is worth bother with, but I haven't look at it's power list yet. The Ardent looks like it has some interesting possibilities. The feats are okay. More attempts to make the Soulknife not suck and some random other stuff. They nerfed Empathic Transfer, Hostile and reduced the max number of Astral constructs to one. Some of the items are pretty cool, I like the skin that makes a suit of armor appear on you(+8 armor bonus, +2 max Dex, ACP -6, 25% ASP, but no penalty to speed for 3,000). A depressing lack of racial sub levels. There is a complete power list for all the classes and a bunch of new powers, some of which don't suck. There are several mistakes in the editting that are confusing and somewhat problematic.

[Oberoni]

and reduced the max number of Astral constructs to one.

Are you serious? I had no earthly idea that power was so strong that it needed such a huge nerf. I knew it was a pretty good power, but I don't believe I've ever seen it or read about it being abused.

I have a bad feeling that, were I to buy it, I'd be sadly disappointed by the book. Not just from what you said, of course. However, I'm read up on some other reviews on other message boards. While I don't generally trust other boards as much as I do Nifty and the Den, I must admit that I'm seeing very few people saying "XXX is sweet!" I read someone say "XXX is okay" from time to time. I also read a lot of "XXX got really nerfed."

I mean, I hope I'm wrong, and I'm going to scan around a bit more, but, based on general reception, it looks like the book's a clunker. The poor editing you mentioned doesn't help.

[Neeek]

I'd go with "It's okay at best". There is maybe 30 pages of a 160 page book that contain anything interesting.

[Josh_Kablack]

1145141389[/unixtime]]Well, the PrCs are pretty weak

In a Psionics book, weak PrCs you say...?

[Neeek]

1145166405[/unixtime]]

1145141389[/unixtime]]Well, the PrCs are pretty weak

In a Psionics book, weak PrCs you say...?

Yeah. Like all but one of the XPH ones. This is news somehow?

[User3]

Most of the book is usuable drek, but the psionic fetichist will enjoy rubbing their bodies all over it.

For people who don't have such strong feeling about psionics, most of the book is confusingly arranged and most of the time it just doesn't have enough juice for you to care. I mean, who really care that there is a psionic verasion of clerics and rogues? Where's the original flavor?

That being said, there is a few neat items. I like the illithid heritage feats. I can actually see people making illithid grapple-monster builds using these feats and classes that add mad bonus feats. The Lurker class also seems an actually viable alternative to a Rogue, but I'd have to look at the limits on their powers and power points more closely.

A lot of it is unbalanced, and there is even a chunk of stuff that is so poorly written that you can't actually figure out how its supposed to work. For example, one of the feats lets you expend your psionic focus for a bonus to AC, which is quite straightfoward. The problem is that the duration of this ability isn't written down anywhere. I think they intended it to be 1 round, like the prerequisite feat, but that might just be me making sense out of chaos.

[Oberoni]

Most of the book is usuable drek, but the psionic fetichist will enjoy rubbing their bodies all over it.

See, that sounds tempting, but I have two other fetishes worth mentioning--POWER and proper spelling.

Power should be self-explanatory. I hear a good portion of the book is errata that "fixes" things (like Astral Construct). I think you can all guess which definition of "fixes" I'm using (hint: it's the one people use when talking about their pets).

Proper spelling is different. It means that I crave well-edited stuff. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it needs to be really well done. The multiple examples I've read seem to indicate that there are enough spelling, syntax, and logical errors to make me twitch.

So I don't know, man. I just don't know.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

I suggest you find a major bookstore that has it (Barnes and Noble, Borders, ect), take it to one of those plush chairs, and give it a good once-over. If you can tolerate it, buy it. If not, set it on the coffee table and some employee will be around shortly to reshelve it.

-Desdan

[fbmf]

1145222386[/unixtime]]I suggest you find a major bookstore that has it (Barnes and Noble, Borders, ect), take it to one of those plush chairs, and give it a good once-over. If you can tolerate it, buy it. If not, set it on the coffee table and some employee will be around shortly to reshelve it.

-Desdan

That is excellent advice.

Game On,
fbmf

[User3]

I'm bitter about the book and I haven't even seen it.

Jesus Fucking Christ.

[Essence]

I just glanced over the Lurk, and I have one thing to say:

A melee attack that automatically drops your opponent's Dex to AC+67d6 Sneak Attack+fort save or be stunned...that's wrong, even if it is only gonna happen once each day.

[Book]

I still don't have the book yet.

Anybody care to do a critique/review of the specific contents?

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I took a once-over.

Liked the erudite somewhat, but there really wasn't enough in the book that interested me to justify buying it. Instead, I bought about $30 worth of pudding, and I feel I made the wiser purchase in the end.

[User3]

1145480321[/unixtime]]I took a once-over.

Liked the erudite somewhat, but there really wasn't enough in the book that interested me to justify buying it. Instead, I bought about $30 worth of pudding, and I feel I made the wiser purchase in the end.

From what I heard, the C-psi Erudite is just a pathetically nerfed (see a trend?) version of the real Erudite from Dragon magazine 319.

[Oberoni]

That's correct, they get waaaaaaaaaay fewer different powers per day to manifest.

I'm actually not sure why one of the major focus of Complete Psionics was the nerfing of psionics. The general consensus on the Expanded Psionics Handbook was that it was a thing of beauty, the first genuinely balanced psionics system in D&D since...well, ever.

It wasn't perfect, of course. There are certain ways to 'blow your load' and do a crap ton of attacks in a very short period of time. In general, though, psions were able to hang with the top tier of base classes. They were fun to play. Psions possibly weren't as powerful as the big three, but they were within spitting distance.

However, a few years after the release of the Expanded Psionics Handbook, we get two very different results:

1. Clerics, Druids, and Wizards get a lot of books that make them stronger.

2. Psions get a single book that makes them weaker.

...wtf?

[Lago_AM3P]

(can't post long; Navy doesn't give me long to make posts)

If you are a Psionics fan, you want to be an Erudite if your DM will let you.

You get to have any power off of any list, including that of specific disciplines, mantles, or of the psychic warrior.

In short, best and only psionic class in the history of the universe.

Stack on that stupid surger PrC in this book and the illithid slayer and you're good to go.

[PhoneLobster]

If you are a Psionics fan, you want to be an Erudite if your DM will let you.

You get to have any power off of any list,

Not really.

What you want, what you really really want, is a little down time for research. Then you can get any power off any list anyway, and not counted toward normal limits known. Because psions are a lot like wizards in that regards only slightly pointlessly different.

Alternately be a straight psion for the bonus feats, be a human for the bonus feat, take that one that gives you extra hit points for every psionic feat and spend the rest of your career taking that feat that now gives you hit points and any one power you want to cherry pick off any list. it works out not too bad and a lot of the other options for psionic feats revolve around annoying potentially house rule nerfed or misunderstood into obscurity psionic focus and junk.

The second way is probably how to make a good psionic warrior, you got the feats, you got the hit points, you got the powers you need and you kick some ass. Go the psion (or even wilder) kicking the psychic warriors ass at being a psychic warrior.

Goodbye erudite, we barely knew thee.

[User3]

Yep, the problem with the Erudite is that it costs less XP to reconfigure your repitoire with Psychic Reformation then to learn a full set of powers in the first place (and, as Phone Lobster said, research is an option). If there were as many psionic powers as there are spells, the pure versatility might be worth it.

As it stands, Erudite is really just a good dip class to qualify for a different manifesting progression and get 2 feats instead of one.

[Username17]

The general consensus on the Expanded Psionics Handbook was that it was a thing of beauty, the first genuinely balanced psionics system in D&D since...well, ever.

Well no. That was the general consensus of the people who were fans of the XPH. Of course, that was the general consensus of the people who were fans of the Psionics Handbook and the people who were fans of the 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons "Complete Psionics Handbook".

The group of people for whom that has been the general consensus has been increasing with each printing, but it's nothing like a majority of D&D players even today. Many of us still feel that it's a tacked on system that actually can't be good, as the basic premises are too flawedto function.

D&D magic is based on the Sailor Moon model, where you have a couple of ginormous tricks that you can do at the beginning of the fight or the end, and you have some minor crap that you use without thinking about it. Psionics is based on the Shock and Awe model, where you spend everything on doing your biggest and most hard core thing over and over again until you're out of juice and then you go hide and hope the rest of the party can handle everything else that day. It's not tactical, it's not interesting, and it isn't fun. The fact that it's so very hard to make a psion that can even keep up with the party and it's all based on people making newage staves out of Atlantean Pop Rocks is just insult piled upon the very real injury of the fact that it's a bankrupt system whose entire purpose is to require more math and less tactics while making players take turns feeling inadequate and useless.

Psionics has always been garbage. That the XPH is the best Psionics has ever been is the cruelest indictment of the genre that I can imagine.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

I never saw the appeal to psionics. All the times I've played with it, I would agree wtih Frank's assessment that it's a terrible underlying premise.

Psionics seems good at one thing only and that's blowing its entire wad on one or two battles per day to get a crazy nuke combo going. Aside from that, you might as well just play a wizard.

Psionics is the pinnacle of the X/day paradigm, and that paradigm pretty much sucks. It forces DMs to impose super rigid measures to prevent PCs from resting and it makes psionic NPCs into TPK machines.

[The_Matthew]

I have to throw my lot with Frank and RC here (somehow it seems weird that all three of us agree on something). Psionics in D&D have never been good, they have never been balanced, and they have always suffered the problem of a psion jumping you in a dark alley and making your head explode because you aren't a psion.

With the XPH they no longer make your head explode because you aren't a psion, they just make it explode because they want to and that's not cool. If a wizard was able to take all of his cantrips and light them on fire so that his shapechange was even more awesome, that would be terrible. Hell, if he was able to do that he might be able to get some real effect out of fireball, and nobody wants that.

Therefor, I can only condone doing one thing to make a 'psion': taking a sorcerer, and tricking them out with some nice mind-affecting spells that give you the powers that you want, and then adding other spells so that they can do things like telekinesis and psychoportation and all that crap.

[User3]

Can anyone discuss their feelings on some of the more controversial psionic powers like Synchronicity, Hustle, Psionic Reformation, etc?

Seems like the core hardcore power tricks of psionics revolves around the combinatorial permutations and interactions of a handful of these powers.

[User3]

Psionics can have a silly, tacked-on feel in certain campaign worlds (FR, Greyhawk). In others (Darksun), it makes the world what it is.

In addition, psions can be played poorly, blowing everything they have on one or a few combats (much like a wizard), but they can also be played well.

Not everyone wants to fiddle around with frog's legs, bat ears, sulphur, scrolls, and mumbo-jumbo to use their powers.

Psionics are by no means perfect (some of the 'displays' are just silly), but they are, over-all, less game breaking then spellcasting.

[The_Matthew]

The only reason why psionics can be considered less game breaking than spellcasting is because The Big Three have Real Ultimate Power being given to them all the time. Psionics on the other hand have their own special rules that means they are playing FF6 while everybody else plays FF1 (that is they have spell points, and you don't.) that makes no sense, and is gamebreaking in many ways.

<will be inputing more later>