OOC

[Amechra]

Holy shit, I just realized what class would be the worst thing to run in this kind of game.

The Nord's Blade's 6th level feature allow you to basically make the world follow Revisionist history.

So, to take your example from earlier:

Level 15 NPC: What do you know about Karse?
Level 9 you: I think I'll be from Karse. Seems like a nice place.
Level 15 you: Well, I was born there...

Next day:

Level 15 NPC: What do you know about [insert name of place here]?
You: I was born there. Didn't you ask me this yesterday?

[SorO_Lost]

I lamo'ed.

[Nanshork]

I've got 4900 gp left to spend on my 9th level build.  Anyone want to give it a lookover and give me some suggestions?

[Amechra]

4000 gp worth of 10' poles, chalk, and rope?

[Nanshork]

4000 gp worth of 10' poles, chalk, and rope?

Try again.

[Amechra]

But that's what I suggest for everyone.

[Nanshork]

But that's what I suggest for everyone.

But I don't want to be like everyone!  I'm a unique snowflake who punches everyone with his icy fists of doom!

[sirpercival]

10x Feather Token: Tree.

[Nanshork]

Question: How do you want me to calculate the Frostrager's rend damage?  Is it 2d8 because I'm medium sized or is it going to be based off of my unarmed strike damage?

[Nanshork]

Alright, minus the rend question I'm done with all levels.  If someone would look over all of my math (so much math) I'd appreciate it.

[SorO_Lost]

With all the downtime did everyone finish up or think, hey no forums no game, and procrastinate?

[Risada]

With all the downtime did everyone finish up or think, hey no forums no game, and procrastinate?

Sadly RL helped...

Will try to finish remaining sheets ASAP... Work is killing me...

[Risada]

SorO, I'm very sorry, but I am going to drop out of this game. I simply don't seem to find any time to finish my sheets.

I hope you all have a lot of fun in this.

[SorO_Lost]

[phaedrusxy]

So... does that mean there's a spot?  I'm dying to try this Ephemeral Blade PrC out. It's a time-themed psi/ToB duel progression. Here's the build planned at level 16:

Psionic Multistriker
Ardent 1/Warblade 1/Ardent +1/Sword Sage 2/Ephemeral Blade 10/Ardent+ 1

(click to show/hide)

Feats required: Practiced Manifester (Ardent), Psionic Meditation OR Instant Clarity (you want both, and probably Psicrystal Containment, too!)

Feats: Practiced Manifester (Ardent)(1), Psicrystal Affinity (flaw1), Psicrystal Containment (flaw2), Instant Clarity (3), Expanded Knowledge (Share Pain)(6), Psionic Meditation (9), Delay Power (12), Fury Of The Storm ?, Riding the Waves ?

Mantles (Powers)
Physical Power (Vigor, Animal Affinity)
Pain and Suffering ("share pain" mantle power, HET, Forced Share Pain, Fuse Flesh, Psychotic Break-delayed)
Time (delay damage mantle power, Time Hop, Temporal Acceleration)

Level by level highlights:
1) two 1st level ardent powers
2) 1st level warblade maneuvers
3) a 2nd level Ardent power
4) 1st level SS manuevers
5) Wis to AC, a 2nd level SS maneuver (could swap levels warblade and SS are taken at)
6) Use Wis for Conc, gain 1/2 IL in temporary PPs 1x/day
7) +1 man. known, so-so stance
8 ) Channel Power (you have 4th level powers), Instant Clarity 4/day
9)  +1 man. known, manifest Teleportation power 1/encounter as free action after martial strike
10) 30' ranged martial strike 1/encounter
11)  +1 man. known, Instant Clarity 5/day
12) 1/encounter swift->immediate action (Hustle, Dimension Step, Temporal Acceleration, etc) (and yes, you do get a power known at this level, so it could be Temporal Acceleration)
13)  +1 man. known, Innervating Strike + Diamond Rift Stance = 3 or 4 martial strikes per round (containing 3 or 4 Channeled Powers)!
14) Instant Clarity is now unlimited times per day, and Psionic Recovery is 3/day
15)  +1 man. known, Expend Focus, get a full round action as a free action 1/encounter!

At level 16, we also have an initiator level of 14 for both Swordsage and Warblade, and a ML of 16 for Ardent (thanks to Practiced Manifester)

I think I need to look at the powers/mantles to make sure I get in the required/desired teleportation powers using all the different actions (swift, move, and standard ), but that's pretty much it.

[SorO_Lost]

My biggest problem with psionic homebrew is they take a magic based class (JPM in this case), but rather than adapting it to use psionics they empower it, remove the limitations, and create bigger bonuses.

Examples
JPM's Stances have a less-than-useful base effect that is increased by spending a Spell? EB gives the full effect.
JPM augments his strike by expending a Spell Slot for a set scaling boost for combat only? EB gives Spell Storing, pick what you love.
JPM has a few dead levels? EB gives you more ways to ignore it's Psionic Focus limitations, which are not real limitations anyway.
JPM gives once per encounter Empower and Quicken? EB gives free PP, full-round actions, immediate action teleport to attack, and Arcane Reach.

*sigh*
How about this.

The Riven Hourglass, 1 & 2, the Flowering Night, and EB are all allowed. However. They have all be beaten with a nerf bat. Most of EB's freebies cost an appropriate amount of PP to use, several maneuvers offer Saves to negate, and anything else that from the sidelines you'd wonder if it's a bit much you fix before using it so I don't have to read into detail on it. Sound good?

[phaedrusxy]

The Riven Hourglass, 1 & 2, the Flowering Night, and EB are all allowed. However. They have all be beaten with a nerf bat. Most of EB's freebies cost an appropriate amount of PP to use, several maneuvers offer Saves to negate, and anything else that from the sidelines you'd wonder if it's a bit much you fix before using it so I don't have to read into detail on it. Sound good?

I'm actually fine just using the official ToB disciplines with it (Diamond Mind, Iron Heart or White Raven are what it normally gets, and those are certainly fine). I hadn't even considered homebrew disciplines, and certainly don't want to mess around with trying to balance them...

And sure, we can add power point costs to anything you think is lacking them, but I'm not sure what you think needs them. I'd assumed all of the abilities that say "when you do X, you can do Y" would cost the normal amount of power points when used, anyway. So for example, if you use Innervated Strike to manifest a teleportation power after making a strike, you'd pay the normal amount of power points to manifest that power. Same thing with Channel Power.

Is the Accelerated Mind Stance what you have a problem with? At level 10, it grants +3 to attacks, damage, AC, and Saves, and +30' movement, plus an extra attack. But... at that point, I could instead be running around in a 7th level ToB stance. Is that better than all of those? (Also, once I get Diamond Rift Stance, I'll never use it again... See next paragraph.)

Once you hit levels 8-10, and get Diamond Rift Stance, this class will basically let you nova like hell, but psionics is pretty good at that even without this class. This lets you make a melee nova, instead of a "normal" one, which is kind of cool I thought. Of course, you're going to run into the same problem all psionicists do when they nova: running out of power points. Being able to pull it off also forces you into specific feat and power choices to enable it, so there is an opportunity cost.


Edit: Max wealth for 1st level? Or roll/average?

[SorO_Lost]

I think you summarized the nova problems with Psionics nicely and glad you agree on the PP cost changes. But I'm not sure what needs them either. Mechanically EB gives you both the extra actions to manifest various powers and the additional Power Points to make those manifestations free so you can nova more than normal and all the while its granting Martial Progression at the mere cost of augmentation limitations and maybe powers known depending on class (as noted you make up pp loss, just not ml)

A simple fix off the top of my head would be to have those abilities consume PP. With your freebie points you could use those abilities for free for maybe a round or two, but extended use or while low in level you'd be dipping into your main pool. A typical not everything for free change. It's a little different than saying ban the PP trait, because with it you still have the option to burn the points in a more typical psionic combat abilities (such as precog).

I think I said max gold before, not sure but if I didn't than yeah it is.

[phaedrusxy]

How about we just get rid of the free power point thing? It's only 3x/day, anyway, and I don't even care...

[SorO_Lost]

I think 4 of you guys are done and Phaedrus seems pretty close. So lv1 thread is up, we'll get the intros set up and introduce the later threads as we go.