From: kurgan@spock.uucp (Andrew Twyman)
Subject: Re: Dragon Psionics Class
Organization: Choate Rosemary Hall
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 23:39:01 GMT

In article <1993Jan21.184626.24036@sfu.ca> akostur@fraser.sfu.ca (Andre John Kostur) writes:
>In article <1993Jan21.030208.10265@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu> smt0@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (STEFAN M. THIEME) writes:
>>In article <20JAN199312363535@udel.edu>, jdelisle@udel.edu (J. G. Delisle) write
>>s:
>>
>>Despite the fact that this very same arguement raged through here only a
>>couple months ago, I feel it necessary to throw my own 2 cents in.
>>>
>>>       Yeah, godlike... but mid-level psi's can only do disintegrate once or
>>>twice per day. A mage of the same level can cut loose with 2-3 fireballs,
>>>snowball swarms, (name your favorite area effect and/or heavy damage spell),
>>>etc. It only affects one target, uses up a lot of PSP's, and is fairly failure
>>>prone (after all, any monster over about 10 hit dice has a 50-50 chance of
>>>surviving, without any other bonuses).
>>>
>>
>>Listen to what you said. "mid level psi's can only do disintergrate once or
>>twice per day." Which means, your mid-level psi (8th level, let's say) can on a
>>lucky day kill TWO DRAGONS in one day. He won't be mid-level for long, then,
>>will he? All the dragon has to do is fail one saving throw.
>> On the otherhand, look at the wizard. First he needs to have the proper spells
>>memorized. He needs to have the reagents. (he also needs concentration, but so
>>does the psion, so I leave it out). He casts a spell against a dragon he firsts
>>has to get around the MR, and then the saving throw. Plus, a mid level wizard
>>probably will not be able to kill the dragon with one spell.
>>
>
>Let's look again at the psion vs mage:
>  Mage            Psion
>Needs spell       Needs devotion
>Needs reagents    Needs sufficient PSPs
>Needs Concentr.   ditto
>Overcome MR       Needs Power Check
>Dragon gets save  ditto
>Unable to kill    ditto (but more proabable... see below)
>  with one spell
>  
>However, if the mage's spell fails for some reason... he just loses the spell,
>if the psion fails, most of the time he just loses some PSP, if he fails by
>rolling a 20, he needs to make a save vs. disinto (at +5... true) or the 
>psion just disintoed himself!
>
>And regarding a mage being unable to kill a dragon with a disinto spell...
>the mage's spell disintoes a 10' cubical area.  If this doesn't kill the dragon
>why would a 2' cubical (the area affected by a psion disinto) area kill the
>dragon any easier? (The mage affects 125 times the area that the psion does!)

Bravo!  Good explanation.  I agree whole-heartedly.  One more point, though,
regarding your equating the Psionicist's power check with the mage's neccessity
of overcoming magic resistance.  I would probably rule in most cases that a
Psionic power would have to overcome magic resistance as well, at least a power
such as disintegrate, though perhaps not oteer powers, such as Telepathic ones.
It would be up to the DM whether to agree with me or not, and to what degree.
Overall, I think that there's no way that anyone can rightfully say that a
Psionicist is any more unbalanced as a class than, say, a mage, especially
considering that the ability requirements to be s Psionicist are far higher, to
say nothing of the ability-based power checks.
-- 
*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*
|  -"I have something to say.  It's better to burn out, than to fade away!"-  |
|                          -* THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE *-                        |
*kurgan@choate.edu*-----------------------------------------------------------*