OT: Narf has gone looney and wants to GM.(Edited2)

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Hmm, yes. And the item I saw that stored power points doesn't hold much.

Thanks, guys.

[Jack Simth]

And to top it off, they STORE power points - they don't generate them.

[NullAshton]

Psions, however, have flexibility. 379 power points is enough for 22.3 effective level 9 powers. How many non-epic wizards do you know of that are capable of casting 22 level 9 spells a day?

[Violist]

Of course, our combats tend to be pretty short... the worst situation for ammunition I can recall was that one jailbreak day, with the pit fiend and the 3 balors in one day... I was definitely running low on blasting power then. 22 rounds is quite a bit.

[Jack Simth]

NullAshton: Quite a few, actually; they just have to prepare in advance by making scrolls and/or staves of the spell they want 22 of. As more psionic powers than spells have XP costs, the cost for storing the spell like that is going to roughly balance out. A 50-charge, single-spell staff of a 9th level spell costs 17*9*750=114,750 gp (market). A 50-charge, single-spell staff of a 9th level spell that costs 2 charges per activation (25 uses) costs half that, or 57,375 gp (market). Sure, it takes the Wizard 2 months to set it up.... but it has some advantages (free scaling on caster level and save DC, for the staff).

[NullAshton]

Mostly the psionic powers that need XP would cost gold otherwise, though. Like True Metamorphosis, the arcane equivalent of that needs an expensive focus.

[Jack Simth]

Yeah. The wizard, for a one-time price, can cast Shapechange as often as desired.

The Psion that just barely managed to level up can't manifest True Metamorphosis at all.

[NullAshton]

But at high levels, 200 XP isn't all that much. Though it doesn't last as long... hmmm...

There's still other spells, anyhow.

[Jack Simth]

Yeah, there are. The Psion has an advantage over the Wizard in short-term flexibility (most the energy powers, for instance, have selectable elements - and saves; Fort for cold (Evade This! - doesn't work so hot on Kibin, though), reflex for most).

The Wizard has an advantage over the Psion in long-term flexibility; the Wizard can "know" any number of spells (in the spellbook) and entirely change character from one day to the next. The Psion needs Psychic Reformation to do that... which costs XP.

Of course, the Psion is much less wealth-dependant than the Wizard (no Psionic power costs XP).

But a Wizard can do more total in a given day (due to free damage scaling - a 9th level Wizard's fireball does 9d6 damage for a 3rd level spell slot; a 9th level Psion needs to spend 9 power points to deal 9d6 damage with a simple power manifestation).

You can go back and forth for a while.

[NullAshton]

There's something the psion can do that the wizard can NEVER do(without Complete Arcane)

Contingent temporal acceleration.

Yay 6 rounds of free time on any condition you choose!