OOC Thread

[Nanshork]

Question: Are a few extra PP worth feat slots?

In mot cases I would say no. You may want to look at some way of getting discounted manifestation or extra renewable PP to increase your endurance.

Also on a related note. Phaedrus will torc of power preservation work as in XPH or MiC?

Is that even possible at level three?

[PhaedrusXY]

Question: Are a few extra PP worth feat slots?

In mot cases I would say no. You may want to look at some way of getting discounted manifestation or extra renewable PP to increase your endurance.

Also on a related note. Phaedrus will torc of power preservation work as in XPH or MiC?

Either one. Just pick which version you want when you buy it.

I just realized I have no idea what powers to take (or feats for that matter, seeing as there aren't too many options for a 1 handed weapon user) Anything I should look into?

This homebrew feat might interest you:

Duelist [General, Fighter Bonus]
Prerequisites: Base attack bonus +4
Benefit: When you enter melee with your offhand empty and without a shield, you receive a dodge bonus to AC and a bonus on attack and damage rolls equal to 1/3rd of your character level, rounded up. This benefit only applies if you are wielding a melee weapon in combat.

actually, that feat's the reason I chose to go as a duelist type over the classic two hander. But that still leaves me with 6 or so feats to choose for my career, and I can't take duelist just yet, so I have two open slots assuming I take elusive target and mobility. I'll look into the shield style though, maybe I can convert to a swashbuckler...

True. I overlooked the BAB requirement. Hell... I should probably just drop that... These feats were compiled over years of time, and reflect my differing ideas on game design at the time I wrote them. Some haven't been revisited since I first made them up or found them.

There is nothing saying you can't change your fighting style when you pick up that feat later, also. You could start out with a 2-hander (or a longsword which you grip with two hands when it is convenient, etc), or sword and board for now, and then go over to a duelist style later.

I have no problem with retraining as long as you could have taken the feat at the level you took the one you're replacing, also. So you could even pick up some shield feats, and then ditch them later if you want.

[archangel.arcanis]

Sweet! I Know what i'll be hoarding my money for. PP discounts make PW happy.

[PhaedrusXY]

Yeah, Endgamecutter, if you want to take that Duelist feat now, I'll just drop all prereqs for it.

[Nanshork]

Phaedrus, would Creature Capacitor + Azure Talent + Psycharnum Infusion work like i think it does as a PP recharge mechanic?

Edit: Dammit, I'd have to be level six for that to work anyway.

[PhaedrusXY]

Phaedrus, would Creature Capacitor + Azure Talent + Psycharnum Infusion work like i think it does as a PP recharge mechanic?

Edit: Dammit, I'd have to be level six for that to work anyway.

I know very little about incarnum. I do know there is some kind of recharge setup with it, but I thought it only worked if you were out of power points or something, and only gave you a few back at a time.

[Prime32]

There's already bestow power + Earth Power as a recharge mechanic.

[Agita]

Phaedrus, would Creature Capacitor + Azure Talent + Psycharnum Infusion work like i think it does as a PP recharge mechanic?

Edit: Dammit, I'd have to be level six for that to work anyway.

I know very little about incarnum. I do know there is some kind of recharge setup with it, but I thought it only worked if you were out of power points or something, and only gave you a few back at a time.

The trick goes as follows:

1. Psycarnum Infusion allows you to expend your psionic focus to treat one Incarnum feat, soulmeld, class feature, or race feature as filled to capacity with Essentia for a round. Use it to fill Azure Talent.
2. Azure Talent Gives you 2 pp per point of Essentia invested in it that go away when the Essentia goes away. Put these into a Cognizance Crystal (the CC feat here just removes that).
3. The pp would go away, but you've already spent them, now they're in the Cognizance Crystal. Rinse, lather, repeat.

So yeah, unless Cognizance Crystals let you drain pp from them into your own pool, it's just a small pp loop.

[Nanshork]

There's already bestow power + Earth Power as a recharge mechanic.

Problem: I'm a tiny slug and thus never going to be touching the ground.

[PhaedrusXY]

Phaedrus, would Creature Capacitor + Azure Talent + Psycharnum Infusion work like i think it does as a PP recharge mechanic?

Edit: Dammit, I'd have to be level six for that to work anyway.

I know very little about incarnum. I do know there is some kind of recharge setup with it, but I thought it only worked if you were out of power points or something, and only gave you a few back at a time.

The trick goes as follows:

1. Psycarnum Infusion allows you to expend your psionic focus to treat one Incarnum feat, soulmeld, class feature, or race feature as filled to capacity with Essentia for a round. Use it to fill Azure Talent.
2. Azure Talent Gives you 2 pp per point of Essentia invested in it that go away when the Essentia goes away. Put these into a Cognizance Crystal (the CC feat here just removes that).
3. The pp would go away, but you've already spent them, now they're in the Cognizance Crystal. Rinse, lather, repeat.

So yeah, unless Cognizance Crystals let you drain pp from them into your own pool, it's just a small pp loop.

The Cognizance Psicrystal feat from Dreamscarred Press does exactly that. The Creature Capacitor wouldn't, though, as it doesn't specify that you can use them to recharge your own pool (the Cog. Psicrystal feat does).

[archangel.arcanis]

The problem with the way Agita described for recharging is the debate as to how the points gained from Azure Talent are tracked. Some argue that since they aren't temp. PP that when you go to use it the second time it already "knows" those points have been spent. Very similar to using a Night Stick to get extra turning attempts and then dropping it and picking up a 2nd night stick to have more attempts.

Prime your recharge system works but needs a 2nd way to discount the use of Bestow Power otherwise it is break even. 3pts original cost to give 2 pts to some psi. creature (i've seen arguments that you can't target yourself but have allowed it to work in my game with no real issue since the extras are used to make trap finding ACs), so with Earth Power it is 2 to 2 you need another discount somewhere to get  1 pt to 2pt system.

Honestly if it works is up to Phaedrus if he wants us to be able to recharge and how quickly. If he doesn't want it to work then we either make a gentleman's agreement not to use recharge tricks or he rules that they won't work how we want. If he does then we don't have to teleport away, sleep, and teleport back how many parties do.

[Agita]

There's already bestow power + Earth Power as a recharge mechanic.

Problem: I'm a tiny slug and thus never going to be touching the ground.

Travel around in a cute widdle sack filled with packed earth, with your head poking out so you can attach to your host.

[Prime32]

There's already bestow power + Earth Power as a recharge mechanic.

Problem: I'm a tiny slug and thus never going to be touching the ground.

Travel around in a cute widdle sack filled with packed earth, with your head poking out so you can attach to your host.

Or make your host a mineral warrior.

[Nanshork]

There's already bestow power + Earth Power as a recharge mechanic.

Problem: I'm a tiny slug and thus never going to be touching the ground.

Travel around in a cute widdle sack filled with packed earth, with your head poking out so you can attach to your host.

 


For the Cognizance Psicrystal, it actually requires the Craft Cognizance Crystal feat so I'm not sure how you'd want to deal with that Phaedrus since there aren't any item crafting feats.

But yeah, deciding how what recharge tactics are and aren't alright would be good to know.

[PhaedrusXY]

For the Cognizance Psicrystal, it actually requires the Craft Cognizance Crystal feat so I'm not sure how you'd want to deal with that Phaedrus since there aren't any item crafting feats.

But yeah, deciding how what recharge tactics are and aren't alright would be good to know.

We're just going to pretend the crafting feats don't exist, and ignore them when they're prereqs.

As far as recharge... I guess it's OK, as long as it's slow. Most of those methods are fairly feat and/or item intensive, and are still slow as molasses. It's not really game-breaking either, IMO. Not nearly as bad as action-economy shenanigans, or a lot of other things. Of course... you can use recharge mechanics to nova like hell every combat... but that's mostly at the upper levels, which we'll likely never reach, anyway.

[Nanshork]

For the Cognizance Psicrystal, it actually requires the Craft Cognizance Crystal feat so I'm not sure how you'd want to deal with that Phaedrus since there aren't any item crafting feats.

But yeah, deciding how what recharge tactics are and aren't alright would be good to know.

We're just going to pretend the crafting feats don't exist, and ignore them when they're prereqs.

As far as recharge... I guess it's OK, as long as it's slow. Most of those methods are fairly feat and/or item intensive, and are still slow as molasses. It's not really game-breaking either, IMO. Not nearly as bad as action-economy shenanigans, or a lot of other things. Of course... you can use recharge mechanics to nova like hell every combat... but that's mostly at the upper levels, which we'll likely never reach, anyway.

Now I have to decide if I want to spend a feat on a psicrystal.   

Yeah, the psycharnum feats won't even work properly until level 6 when the capacity bumps to 2.

[X-Codes]

The problem with the way Agita described for recharging is the debate as to how the points gained from Azure Talent are tracked. Some argue that since they aren't temp. PP that when you go to use it the second time it already "knows" those points have been spent. Very similar to using a Night Stick to get extra turning attempts and then dropping it and picking up a 2nd night stick to have more attempts.

I think I was one of the first people to participate in this very argument.  In my mind, they aren't temp PP, but at the same time I don't feel that there is any such thing as negative PP given that they're never at any point mentioned in any of the rules, even rules regarding what happens when you drop to 0 PP (they all say 0, not 0 or fewer).  In such a case, the series of events would go something like this, I believe:

Case 1: You have 10 pp, are level 6, and can bind to your Crown chakra.

Start of turn 1.
You expend focus on Psycarnum Infusion to max out Azure Talent, gaining 6 PP.
You manifest an augmented power costing you 6 PP, you have 10 PP left.
You use your remaining actions and end turn.
At the start of your next turn, Psycarnum Infusion wears off and you lose the 6 PP you gained by investing in it, reducing you to 4 PP.

There's no net gain if you have PP left to lose, and even if you manage to offload the power points you gain, there's still only so much you can do with it:

Case 2: As above, except you only have 1 PP and a Cognizance Crystal with a 7 PP capacity.

Start of Turn 1.
You expend focus on Psycarnum Infusion to max out Azure Talent, gaining 6 PP.
You invest your 7 PP into your cognizance crystal.
You use your remaining actions and end turn.
At the start of your next turn, Psycarnum Infusion wears off.  You would lose 6 PP, but there are no PP left to lose.

The problem here is that you can't loop this procedure.  You have 0 PP, so you can't regain psionic focus to trigger Psycarnum Infusion again.  If memory serves, the most popular way to circumvent this was to use Bestow Power.

Case 3: As above, except you have 0 PP, and a cognizance crystal that has at least 3 PP in it.

Start of Turn 1.
You manifest an unaugmented Bestow Power from your cognizance crystal and gain 2 PP.
You spend a move action to focus yourself.
You expend focus on Psycarnum Infusion to max out Azure Talent, gaining 6 PP.
You invest your 8 PP into your cognizance crystals.
You end turn, maybe taking a swift action beforehand.
At the start of your next turn, Psycarnum Infusion wears off.  You would lose 6 PP, but there are no PP left to lose.

This loop is self sustaining, but you'll never net more than 7pp per round (at level 18), and never get above the combined capacity of your cognizance crystals.  You can also recharge the crystals of the entire party using this method, but that would require 10-20 minutes extra time for everyone to attune to their crystals.  Compared to straight-up Bestow Power shenanigans it's pretty fast, but the limit on how much you can charge up is much lower, and it's still much to slow to be of practical use in any situation where time is limited and your actions are needed to do something else.

Also, there is no Cognizance Psicrystal feat.  It's simply a variant Psicrystal that has additional pre-requisites and additional benefits.  If this method is allowed, then you should probably invest a feat here: http://dsp-d20-srd.wikidot.com/one-pool.

[Nick]

Sorry guys but I have to say this.

This is a 3rd level game, a character can be done pretty quickly. I'm not sure what's keeping the rest of you guys up.

As for recharge mechanics, come on! We.Are.Just.Level.3

[Nanshork]

Sorry guys but I have to say this.

This is a 3rd level game, a character can be done pretty quickly. I'm not sure what's keeping the rest of you guys up.

As for recharge mechanics, come on! We.Are.Just.Level.3

Here's what you don't understand.  We're not going to stay level three forever, and we like to plan ahead and know what options are available to us.  The fact that we are currently level three doesn't affect that.

[endgamecutter]

Sorry guys but I have to say this.

This is a 3rd level game, a character can be done pretty quickly. I'm not sure what's keeping the rest of you guys up.

As for recharge mechanics, come on! We.Are.Just.Level.3

I'm...really bad at choosing powers. Plus how many feats can you honestly name for a 1 handed weapon psionic gish beyond the homebrew duelist and the prerequisite feats for swiftblade (I'm almost going to say don't answer that, but I seriously can't think of any. I know the psionics system, if not the abuses like infinite pp regen; but I've never put much thought into being a mage character because of the per day limitations)?