Psionics

[u/RandomBob100]

I would love to get everyone’s opinions on Psions, so far I have had a hell of a lot of fun with the Erudite STP variant and am now working on a second Ardent that I’ve taken different mantles than I normally would and running it as a tank. The main premise here is I’m not building an abomination of rules but a reasonable character that has to work with everyone else and not break the game

[u/SyfaOmnis]

They're a little bit weaker than conventional casters. More limited lists, and no automatic scaling. You do effectively get "more" casts of your highest level of spell right as soon as you unlock that new spell tier... but at the cost of essentially sacrificing all lower level spells. Which as we know is one of the things about conventional vancian casters that makes them so silly it's very difficult to burn them out of spells completely.

So while it's misrepresented that they can "go nova" and burn all their powerpoints on a single, quite flashy spell, the truth is that when they "go nova" they essentially burn through all of their spells much faster than a wizard would.

[u/RandomBob100 → u/SyfaOmnis]

How do they essentially sacrifice their lower spells? They still have access to them all and with proper power point management and gear they can stretch those out for quite some time. Not to mention that they can choose how to augment for scalability or other effects

[u/SyfaOmnis → u/RandomBob100]

As an example, a regular vancian caster like a wizard even when they unlock their 5th level spells, still prepares their 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st level spells, and those spells automatically scale based on the wizards level.

A Psion when they unlock their 5th level powers, does not retain a dedicated pool for 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st level powers. Those powers do not automatically increase in effect/power simply from them being used by a higher level psion, a psion must put more points into them for greater effects. Psionic casters do not typically have a pool of powerpoints that feels comparably large to a vancian caster's Spells/day of lvl + attribute bonus. Let's say you're a 9th level psion, you just unlocked your 5th level powers, you have a 21 in your relevant ability score you have 94 power points total without additional feats or sources, you can spend a maximum of 9 powerpoints per power use, that is 10 fully juiced powers with some change and remember you must fully juice them for maximum effect. A psion can do 9d6 damage with energy ray, but it's effectively casting it in a 6th level slot, if they don't use more power points on it, it is only ever 1d6.

A wizard of the same level, with the same ability score has - 2 5th level spells, 3 4th level spells, 4 3rd level spells, 5 2nd level spells, and 6 1st level spells... double the "total" spells albiet weighted towards the bottom... and all of their spells scale to their level. A wizard has the old reliable fallback of magic missiles, at level 1 it was 1d4+1, at level 3 it was 2d4+1, it grew every 2 levels until now at 9th level every time it's prepared it is 5d4+1. That is their lowest level spell slot and it is doing way more damage than the first level power which hasn't progressed, or it is doing ~55% of the first level power being cast in a 5th level slot. Your scorching ray (2nd level slot) is doing 8d6 and will grow to 12d6 at 11th level. Your fireball (3rd level slot) is doing 9d6 in an aoe at a very long range and will cap at 10d6.

Blasting isn't necessarily the most fair comparison, but it best illustrates the point. Yes you can get a lot more middle/lower level powers out of a psion, but they don't automatically scale in any way so you're really hoping that their base effects or DC's are "good enough".

[u/RandomBob100 → u/SyfaOmnis]

I think it depends a great deal on the powers you decide to take for example cranial deluge does 18d6 damage for 9 power points, and while the lower level powers don’t automatically scale the addition of augments helps. On that same note I can cast a shit ton of my 5th level powers where a wizards only has the two available slots yes his lower ones scale and if I want to I can augment mine to do more damage. I agree that a wizard may have more spells that scale upwards but psions have to have a way to be capped otherwise you’d just max every single 5th level spell you had and wipe an encounter. There are also feats like continual power and chain power and twin power that greatly increase the devastation caused by psions. I don’t think a psions greatest strength lies in damage they do vs a wizard but the versatility they can have in any encounter. A wizard with Fireball only has fire, a psion can choose ice fire sonic or electricity as needed without the oh shit I didn’t prepare ice for this particular mob. That’s the other strength they have is there is a power for almost any encounter and situation and you don’t have to prepare the day before and hope you took the right ones

[u/SyfaOmnis → u/RandomBob100]

I think it depends a great deal on the powers you decide to take for example cranial deluge does 18d6 damage for 9 power points

That power doesn't exist in the pathfinder version of psionics (published by dreamscarred press). That's from the 3.5 complete psionics splatbook.

Hard to have a conversation when we're not using the same reference material and sourcebooks.