Ok, we let that much slide. We are working on a set of updated Psionics rules and in the spirit of the Open Playtest Paizo did for Pathfinder we are starting with asking YOU the fans - what would YOU want?

Our intention is to update the Psionics rules with errata and changes to balance some of the powers out, following in the footsteps of Pathfinders "less Save-or-Die" and more "major damage on a failed save" revisions. Each of the 4 "core psionic" classes get an update (partially based on our Untapped Potential updates) and we streamline feats and other items.

What remains the same? Power points, augmentations, items.

So, once again - what would YOU want to see updated, changed, revised or altered and WHY?

One idea I saw mentioned on I think the ENWorld forums was tying the Wilder to the seven deadly sins and the seven saintly virtures. Maybe a bit too much of a tie in to Golarion vis a vis the Runelords, but it sounds like an interesting idea.

Personally, I think the "less Save-or-Die/Save-or-Suck" philosophy only limits the player options. The SoS spells/powers are what make the enchanters and telepaths an interesting and powerful specialty of the wizard and psion classes, and what Paizo did to those spells made the enchanter a worthless specialty, it reduces the spells to simple hack & slash, making them worthless outside combat, taking away the depth of the game.

What Paizo did was respond to a very particular niche, the magic haters and the hack & slashers. Players who can't solve a problem without fighting, and who want others to fight them in "equal terms" (think of it as asking the wizard to fight them in melee). Also, they responded to players who can't come up with a good strategy to beat a wizard (those who charge in from the front, confident of their high HP and their damage throughput).

Hi there,

Someone posted that you were looking at doing psionics for Pathfinder. I've never bought any of your products before and this is my first post! From a marketing standpoint, you've attracted new attention to your website, your company, and your products. Congratulations!

I can't answer your question in the way you want. I've never used or looked at 3.5/d20 psionics before, so I can't speak from an informed opinion. What I can tell you is that I am not against the idea of psionics in my games. I remember thinking they were cool in 1st and 2nd edition, even if they were unbalanced. If you write a good product for Pathfinder I would be willing to buy it.

Here are my desires and concerns

1.) Relatively balanced mechanics: I think complete and total game balance between everything is a myth and leads to boring gameplay.. However, psionics should not be easily exploitable. Balance is important. It doesn't have to be ABSOLUTE, but it has to be reasonable. If there are obvious exploits, my players will reject the rules outright.

2.) Streamlined bookeeping: I have heard the Paizoans (staff) talk about a preference for slots versus points.. and I don't care. However, if you stay with points, I'd like to avoid as much complicated bookeeping as is possible while still retaining that point system. It doesn't matter that basic math is easy, when you're at the table not everyone can think straight. One might not like what they did with the barbarian, but there was an earnest attempt at streamlining bookeeping. From a design philosphy, I'd like you to bear that in mind.

Finally, I'd like to see for the purposes of this design that you, Dreamscarred Press, accept Pathfinder at face value.. I realize that you may not agree with all of the decisions that went into Pathfinder's final rules- but for the purposes of this proposed product I want you to work with what you got. Please consider the post above mine written by Sheng_Gradilla. He's entitled to his opinions, and I respect how he feels. God bless him. Having said that, those kinds of posts really have no bearing on the discussion. You're either going to write Pathfinder Psionics or you're not. I don't want to buy a product from a company that doesn't believe in what they're selling. I want Pathfinder Psionics, I don't want a rewrite of Pathfinder with psionics thrown in as a bonus.

And if that means exercising some board moderation to keep the discussion focused, so be it.

This is only tangentially related, but last week I visited these boards to see if Dreamscarred was serious about doing Pathfinder Psionics. I found a bunch of anti-Pathfinder posts. Dreamscarred Press staff posted that the attacks against Pathfinder were biased, and I appreciated that. However, I walked away from this company and didn't think about buying any of your stuff. All that anti-Pathfinder rhetoric, just from your other fans, drove me away.

Today, things have changed. Paizo might not even consider doing psionics until 2012, and Dreamscarred has expressed active interest in doing it now. So here I am, back again.

Bottom line.. I don't mine that Dreamscarred Editors have some issues with Pathfinder. I don't mind that your other fans have issues with Pathfinder. But let those folks post those issues some other place on your boards. I'm a Pathfinder fan who wants Psionics. I don't want to have to defend Pathfinder just to get them.

Good luck, and please don't take this as attack. I'm just telling you how I feel, so that you have a fair chance of getting my money.

Regarding "save or suck" - the problem is that they often define the entire combat/encounter and dominate the choices for manifesters/spellcasters. Now, allowing people multiple chances to save against a power is one way to help mitigate this problem.

Watcher - first, welcome!

Second, thanks for your well thought out opinions and thoughts, they are appreciated.

I think we can all agree that no game system is going to be perfect for everyone, so accepting the system at face value definitely makes sense.

Jeremy.Smith wrote:

Watcher - first, welcome! Second, thanks for your well thought out opinions and thoughts, they are appreciated. I think we can all agree that no game system is going to be perfect for everyone, so accepting the system at face value definitely makes sense.

Thanks!

I wanted to just tack an addendum to what I said. It might be taken as a call to censor someone, which is not what I intend. I think critique of any system can be healthy.. when it comes from a sense of investment and interest in that system. Without honest appraisal, you limit the opportunity for improvement.

But when it's just an outright rejection of the system, the only value is whether one should purchase the system or not. I'm not going to drop Pathfinder just to get Psionics.. Hence you have to use what you've got.
If someone doesn't like Pathfinder, there's not much more to discuss.



Dropping that point now...

@Watcher - Welcome and thankyou for the insightful posts. Much appreciated.

I also want to raise a voice for "keeping with Pathfinder" - we'd be doing this primarily for Pathfinder as a rulesystem so that means we also stay "true" to their design and rules.

Now, that doesn't mean that we can't do wonderful things with the Psionics system as it stands. Right now, we might need to dedicate a new forum to Pathfinder and Psionics in Pathfinder so that we can get our focus on the rules and how "our vision" (our as in you, me and everyone else who embraces this) turns out.

Indeed, you've attracted me to your website now...first time here...good marketting...

I think XPH is a decent set of rules myself, much better than say, the 3.0 psionics handbook.

Are you attempting to maintain backwards compatibility or a complete rework?

New Classes or just rebalance the classes versus the PfRPG?

I saw that some people hate crystals. I would suggest an introduction of different Psionic focus items.

I saw that you were thinking of a "per encounter" dynamic for psionics...this is more of a 4e concept...Something the Pathfinder community in general did not embrace.

An adept type of class would be interesting, trading out traditional class abitlies, for psionic based buffs.

Xaaon wrote:

Indeed, you've attracted me to your website now...first time here...good marketting...

Well, thankyou, even though that wasn't our direct intention!

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I think XPH is a decent set of rules myself, much better than say, the 3.0 psionics handbook. Are you attempting to maintain backwards compatibility or a complete rework?

We will maintain as much backwards compatability as is reasonable. We expect to retain concepts such as psionic focus and how power points are gained and spent.

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New Classes or just rebalance the classes versus the PfRPG?

Our first book will rebalance and retheme the 4 classes from the XPH, but we have a plan to release atleast 4-6 new classes over time.

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I saw that some people hate crystals. I would suggest an introduction of different Psionic focus items.

This will be part of our "variant themes" chapter in the new book where we explore new ways of "theming" your psionics. It can be Dreamshaping the Waking Dream or Ki Focus, for example. Each includes a retheming of concepts such as crystals.

Quote::

I saw that you were thinking of a "per encounter" dynamic for psionics...this is more of a 4e concept...Something the Pathfinder community in general did not embrace.

Well, that would be a variant rule, ie something people can try if they feel that the psionic classes might overshadow other classes in a "one encounter per day" kind of game. Absolutely not the way we will be writing the main-stay rules.

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An adept type of class would be interesting, trading out traditional class abitlies, for psionic based buffs.

We have an NPC class in our Untapped Potential book (I do believe the information is available at our SRD: dsp-d20-srd.wikidot.com/ ) which we might move over to a RemiXPH.

Angellis_ater wrote:

We have an NPC class in our Untapped Potential book (I do believe the information is available at our SRD: dsp-d20-srd.wikidot.com/ ) which we might move over to a RemiXPH.

Indeed it is. Follow the link on the home page to classes and you will see a link to "Non Player Classes." There is only one, the Augur, but it is an adept style listed there.

Watcher wrote:

Please consider the post above mine written by Sheng_Gradilla. He's entitled to his opinions, and I respect how he feels. God bless him. Having said that, those kinds of posts really have no bearing on the discussion. You're either going to write Pathfinder Psionics or you're not.

You should not judge people so quickly. I'm not saying Dreamscarred Press shouldn't develop Pathfinder Psionics, I'm expressing my distaste against watering down the Save-or-Suck spells/powers in general. Yes, they can dominate an encounter, but only if the group is unprepared or has really bad luck with the dice, but that same problem can be seen with high-damage spells and attacks, if you are not prepared for them or the dice are not on your side you can die in one round.

I use the Pathfinder rules in my games. I even have a campaign with Dreamscarred Press psionics thrown in and adapted to PFRPG. Anyways, I still don't like what they are doing to magic in general. I am currently using d20 3.5 magic instead of PFRPG's in most cases.

My points SHOULD have a bearing on this discussion, as I use part of the Pathfinder rules and plan to buy the book if it's ever released. Suggesting someone's opinion should be ignored just because it's different from yours is not polite.

WHOOOT!!!...

so glad to hear this, as i've been following PF since Alpha and of course i love me my DSP works(i own pretty much everything you guys make).

suggestions:
1) the idea of the Wizard capstone abilities is much loved by many, but the execution from Beta to Final is not. I strongly reccomend you follow suit with the Psion, which you've already done to a degree with the Devoted Psion. However, the idea is to make the ability strong enough to really consider staying in the class all the way to 20. Many are calling said capstone to be something that should be both very flavorful to the Discipline as well as something akin to what an Archpsion would display(since right now in PF there is no Archmage or Heirophant PrCs).

While some may think these abilites might be too powerful, remember that they are gained at 20th level, literally at the edge of being Epic.

2) I do not know if DSP needs to do too much to change your current Soulknife, but i would take a look at the 20th level ability to make sure it's strong enough.

3) I really, really like the idea of the Wilder being tied to the Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Saintly Virtues. I saw said suggestion on the PF boards when people were discussing the next 4 base classes, and the conecpt was something like the Wilder would pick the paired attributes and thereby gain abilities based on them.

4) the Psionic Warrior could be tricky, since it combines solid fighting prowess with some very good psionic powers. While the Ranger and Paladin are similar, the psionic powers a PW manifests are a lot stronger in many cases than the spells the above casts. Part of the problem is that there's at least a few damaging powers a PW has access to. Maybe that could be one of the changes? droping any damaging powers in favor of keeping strong buff powers.

that's all i got for now, but if i come up with more i will definitely let you guys know.

Sheng_Gradilla wrote:

Watcher wrote: Please consider the post above mine written by Sheng_Gradilla. He's entitled to his opinions, and I respect how he feels. God bless him. Having said that, those kinds of posts really have no bearing on the discussion. You're either going to write Pathfinder Psionics or you're not. You should not judge people so quickly. I'm not saying Dreamscarred Press shouldn't develop Pathfinder Psionics, I'm expressing my distaste against watering down the Save-or-Suck spells/powers in general. Yes, they can dominate an encounter, but only if the group is unprepared or has really bad luck with the dice, but that same problem can be seen with high-damage spells and attacks, if you are not prepared for them or the dice are not on your side you can die in one round. I use the Pathfinder rules in my games. I even have a campaign with Dreamscarred Press psionics thrown in and adapted to PFRPG. Anyways, I still don't like what they are doing to magic in general. I am currently using d20 3.5 magic instead of PFRPG's in most cases. My points SHOULD have a bearing on this discussion, as I use part of the Pathfinder rules and plan to buy the book if it's ever released. Suggesting someone's opinion should be ignored just because it's different from yours is not polite.

Just to be fair, I went back and reviewed your original post, and I re-read mine. I reget that you feel I wasn't polite, but I don't feel an apology is warranted.

In your post you make several strong statements about how Pathfinder and who Pathfinder was allegedly written for... Let's review:

Quote::

What Paizo did was respond to a very particular niche, the magic haters and the hack & slashers. Players who can't solve a problem without fighting, and who want others to fight them in "equal terms" (think of it as asking the wizard to fight them in melee). Also, they responded to players who can't come up with a good strategy to beat a wizard (those who charge in from the front, confident of their high HP and their damage throughput).

Now it doesn't bother me that you feel that way. I don't work for Paizo and I will still buy their products no matter what you think. But I'm not inclined to consider you as an injured party.

You'll notice that I didn't quote your first paragraph. The reason I didn't quote it was because it was topical and relevant. In the first paragraph you explain what you didn't like about Pathfinder mechanics. I'll grant you that.

However, in this second paragraph (that I've quoted) all you're doing is ascribing motivations and play styles on the part of the designers and their prospective customers. Passing judgment on them. Ridiculing them. What I said about you was gentle and kind in comparison to what you said about them. I can't justify seeing you as some sort of victim of my alleged disrespect.

All that aside, you're advocating that this product be written with a 3.5 design perspective, specifically in regards to Saves versus Spells/Powers.

I understand your point. But I don't agree with what you propose.

Rather I think DP should write Pathfinder RPG Psionics.

What you want is Pathfinder-Hybridized-3.5-Psionics. Or a Custom Design Product? Something that matches how you've taken out magic and substituted the 3.5 rules. That's fine for you. But your preference shouldn't be the baseline for an accessory to the Core Rules.

I'm not suggesting they take my preference either; or rather my preference actually is that they just stick to the Rules As Written. I maintain, Dreamscarred should either take Pathfinder at face value, or don't write the book. Don't try to rewrite the newly rewritten Core rules. Rather write a Psionics Handbook so that they can be incorporated in a standard Pathfinder RPG game. Don't design your rules with an editorial mandate that conflicts with the product you're trying to support.

Now I don't intend for this post to be taken as rude either, though I concede it might be frank and to the point. I still respect your opinion and your right to share it. I can't be any more polite without being insincere. I don't care for being mischaracterized as rude when I wasn't.

Just to support what Watcher has said, but I agree that you really need the obviously analogous elements of the rules to match, if you really want the rules to mesh well with Pathfinder RPG and not just look like "random 3rd party sourcebook" which may appeal to some people, but is easily dismissed by others.

This is what I posted about the whole thing at Paizo's boards:

1. Please do this product in the same vein as PFRPG, i.e. a setting neutral "crunch" book. Settings can be fun, but if someone doesn't like the given setting, or is happy with their existing setting choice, its easy to loose them if you tie the rules too closely to a new setting.

2. Try to keep to the "don't subtract, only add" philosophy when fine tuning the psionic classes.

3. A minor "at will" ability like spellcaster's cantrips or orisons might not be a bad idea (although this does kind of step on the psionic focus feats, which only require you take the time to refocus to use again). Finding a balance between those two would be nice.

4. Something that is obviously analogous from arcane and divine should probably be changed in psionics as well. In other words, if there is a psionic power that is very obviously based on a spell that has changed in Pathfinder, then, yes, it should match up with the PF spell now, so that psionics don't feel like the "backdoor" way to work around new rules.

5. Please, please, make sure you stick to the established PF design parameters, i.e. things like HD/BaB synch up. I know sometimes it seems like an exception might be worthwhile, but once you make one exception, its that much easier to say something else should be an exception as well, and then it starts to look like, well, you are just doing what you feel like doing rather than trying to synch up with the core rules.

6. If at all possible, try to reopen talks with Paizo about making this the "default" psionics option. Paizo has some great guys and great designers, but I'm not feeling a lot of psionics love, and I'd rather have the "official" option worked on by guys that have a passion for the rules than someone that feels that they need to convert them just to have the rules in print. No offense to anyone at Paizo.

7. While the rules should be fun and accessible, please resist the temptation to scuttle established aspects of the 3.5 psionics system to try to attract people that already dislike psionics, because, while I respect people's opinions, sometimes someone will never like a concept, no matter what you do with it, and it would be a shame to tank what people do already like for a chance to bring in someone that's not already excited about the system.

SoD's are the only things that I noticed getting powered down. Getting spammed with such spells/powers will eventually force a failure of a save. SoS's however should remain a part of the game, since there is usually a way to remove the condition, and get you back into the fight.

after edit: The edited part is bolded

Regarding SoD/SoS really quick:
anything that can end you in one failed save is never fun, regardless of who or how it happens. Also, since there is a good amount of different spells, belonging to different schools/subschools, it's really hard to be prepared for it all. Got Immunity to Fire and Cold? then it'll suck if your hit with Acid or Sonic, got Immunity to all 4 elements? good luck gaining such vs Force. etc etc, the only way to really come close is via lots of previosuly cast spells, which wastes those slots and begs the question how did u know what to prepare OR via the dreaded Christmas Tree Affect, whereby one is laden down with a massive amount of magic items.

Finally if one looks, i am quite certain that all SoDs are still capable of killing you, just not out right. Also, nobody is saying you can't house rule these back, but it makes zero sense for DSP to follow the 3.5 versions of these spells/powers since that would essentially make their PF book a houserule one, which i think is something they'd like to avoid. It's hard enough getting a DM to approve of non WotC/Pathfinder books as it is, but if such books are using rules which the DM doesn't want or like, or feel like learning, chances are they won't get used, no matter how much one begs or pleads.

First of all, allow me to make a few things clear.

1. All opinions, no matter how deviant they are, are welcome on the boards. If someone wants our Psionics Handbook to be about psionic bullywugs, they are free to state this. So even if there has been a call to "censure" certain posts or moderate discussions to keep them "on topic", when we announced an OPEN design, it meant open to all.

2. That said, there are two premises that we will NOT diverge from. The first is that these rules WILL be built around more or less the same design principles that Pathfinder brought to the table. I might not love everything they did, but I didn't love everything WotC did with D&D either. That doesn't matter, we are writing this supplement for Pathfinder. The second is that we will NOT diverge from the concept of Power Points and how they work.

Now, having stated this, I feel we can get back on a more topical discussion. I hope no-one took offense.

Quote::

1) the idea of the Wizard capstone abilities is much loved by many, but the execution from Beta to Final is not. I strongly reccomend you follow suit with the Psion, which you've already done to a degree with the Devoted Psion.

The discussion between Jeremy and me right now is that each class will indeed have a capstone ability, and the Psion might even get six different ones.

Quote::

2) I do not know if DSP needs to do too much to change your current Soulknife, but i would take a look at the 20th level ability to make sure it's strong enough.

We intend to expand the options the class has, to allow for more variants and different "builds" to be used. We will also be adding a number of mindblade feats to the base feats, so that a Soulknife has some feats just for him.

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3) I really, really like the idea of the Wilder being tied to the Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Saintly Virtues.

Unfortunately, I don't think this will be used. First of all, the premise is strictly Christian and has NO analogy inside a game world. It would be using outside, meta-access concepts, to create a class. Second of all, even if there was Christianity in the game, psionics is not divine.

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Part of the problem is that there's at least a few damaging powers a PW has access to. Maybe that could be one of the changes? droping any damaging powers in favor of keeping strong buff powers.

I am not quite following why this is a problem? Why should this be changed? If someone wants a knight who can pick people up with his mind and throw them around, it is a perfect class.

Quote::

1. Please do this product in the same vein as PFRPG, i.e. a setting neutral "crunch" book. Settings can be fun, but if someone doesn't like the given setting, or is happy with their existing setting choice, its easy to loose them if you tie the rules too closely to a new setting.

We will most probably offer up a number of variant ways to "theme" your psionic powers, so I would call it "setting variable". We will be releasing Third Dawn in a Pathfinder version that corresponds to the rules, but our setting will not influence the rules.

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2. Try to keep to the "don't subtract, only add" philosophy when fine tuning the psionic classes.

This is how we intended to work on this project.

Quote::

3. A minor "at will" ability like spellcaster's cantrips or orisons might not be a bad idea (although this does kind of step on the psionic focus feats, which only require you take the time to refocus to use again). Finding a balance between those two would be nice.

We are working on incorporating Talents back into the game, however, the exact mechanics are still up in the air. Our view is that without feats, psionic focus is kinda meh and useless. Giving the classes Talents you also give them a use for their psionic focus without investing feats.

Quote::

4. Something that is obviously analogous from arcane and divine should probably be changed in psionics as well. In other words, if there is a psionic power that is very obviously based on a spell that has changed in Pathfinder, then, yes, it should match up with the PF spell now, so that psionics don't feel like the "backdoor" way to work around new rules.

No doubt about it. We will cleave as close to Pathfinder RPG as possible on these things.

Quote::

5. Please, please, make sure you stick to the established PF design parameters, i.e. things like HD/BaB synch up. I know sometimes it seems like an exception might be worthwhile, but once you make one exception, its that much easier to say something else should be an exception as well, and then it starts to look like, well, you are just doing what you feel like doing rather than trying to synch up with the core rules.

As with the above statement, we will be trying to stay close to the Pathfinder rules. We might diverge from these standards in a later release once we have established our Psionic Pathfinder line, but not now and here.

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6. If at all possible, try to reopen talks with Paizo about making this the "default" psionics option. Paizo has some great guys and great designers, but I'm not feeling a lot of psionics love, and I'd rather have the "official" option worked on by guys that have a passion for the rules than someone that feels that they need to convert them just to have the rules in print. No offense to anyone at Paizo.

We will do what we can. Becoming the official Pathfinder Psionics "team" would be awesome and we would honestly love that. However, as you noted the Paizo seem to be less than thrilled about the 3.5 version of psionics and this is unfortunate. Our hope was that they'd be more responsive to the people liking the psionics rules rather than trying to "catch more people".

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7. While the rules should be fun and accessible, please resist the temptation to scuttle established aspects of the 3.5 psionics system to try to attract people that already dislike psionics, because, while I respect people's opinions, sometimes someone will never like a concept, no matter what you do with it, and it would be a shame to tank what people do already like for a chance to bring in someone that's not already excited about the system.

See part #2 of my notes above. We might change how things work on a small scale, but not in the big scale.

regarding my comment on PW, the powers i was thinking about were the two Black Dragon ones and to a lesser extent Hammer.

using a power to temporaily gain a breath weapon doesn't exactly strike me as a warrior power, and you'll note such a power doesn't have anything like it among the Ranger or Paladin spell lists. Hammer isn't so bad, since it's a melee touch attack, but perhaps instead of it just enchaning your attack, we bump it up to say level 5 or 6 and make it a force weapon that attacks with you?

Angellis_ater wrote:

Quote:: 3) I really, really like the idea of the Wilder being tied to the Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Saintly Virtues. Unfortunately, I don't think this will be used. First of all, the premise is strictly Christian and has NO analogy inside a game world. It would be using outside, meta-access concepts, to create a class. Second of all, even if there was Christianity in the game, psionics is not divine.

Actually, in defense of Lordmonkeysama, I don't think you understand what he's suggesting.

However, let say first- what he's referring to is part of Golarion's IP. It is specific Golarion Campaign Material, and Dreamscarred would need special licensing from Paizo to write anything about it. So for that reason, it probably can't be done.

To address this misconception about this relating to Christianity, what he's referring to is an ancient collective of Wizards.. called the Runelords. They were arcane spellcasters of great power in an ancient civilization that was wiped out by a meteor (called down deliberately by another party, the aboleths) some ten thousand years in the campaign's time. Some of the Runelords escaped destruction and are coming back into the storylines which are happening now.

The Runelords, again who are arcane wizards, could harvest personality traits from souls, and use that energy to fuel strange and unique magics. At one ancient point in history it was positive personality traits, but with the decline of their civilization it was negative personality traits. These traits are modeled after the Seven Deadly Sins. From an editorial standpoint, I think that had more to do with the fact that they were seven common negative personality traits that most players could rattle off in their head without thinking about it too much.

But that has nothing to do with Christianity.

Golarion has no Christianity in it.

The reference to the Seven Deadly Sin in this context has nothing to do with the Divine. It is related to harvesting energy through arcane (not divine) ritual from souls who engage in certain behaviors. Like sucking the all the rage and anger ('wrath') out of a person to use as a fuel source. In that respect, I don't see it as all that crazy that someone might see psionics as playing a role.

That being said, this is part of the Golarion setting and Paizo's Intellectual Property. (Though, if you wanted to be pendantic I suppose the 7 Deadly Sins themselves would transcend that)

I've posted this because there is a good reason not to do this, but the ones you listed were not correct. Or rather they may reflect your personal reasons for not wanting to do it, but that implies that Lordmonkeysama was suggesting something that he actually really wasn't.