Why Is Telepathy So Bad?

[*Strawberry Jam]

Yes, well... that's the state the class is in regardless of your discipline. Only a few things actually work.

Tho that's actually another point where the Sigil version differs from the original table top version. Psion has different mechanics and a concentration ability called psionic focus which is always active and can be quickly reactivated. This allows that you don't have things like "discipline focus" since it's not magic.

Psionic Endowment [Psionic]

You can endow your manifestations with more concentrated focus.
Benefit

To use this feat, you must expend your psionic focus. You add 1 to the save DC of a power you manifest.

You mentioned shaper, the psionic repair ability is bugged so it doesn't augment properly but it takes the cost. The construct is more or less copy pasted from the srd, while summon monster ix is heavily improved from anything you could get in table top. The only thing they didn't copy was the construction menu mechanic which is the way that psion buffs their construct. Another thing that didn't make it for metacreativity is the creation powers. In fact you can't even craft at all, there is no psionic crafting.

So it's not just one play style that has to make do with what they got.

[*PenguinNinja]

You can make Crystal Golems. That's about it. :x

[*Strawberry Jam]

You can make Crystal Golems. That's about it. :x

That's true, you spend a feat, and you need 50+ skill points only for the crystal golem. Then the gold cost is 35k, a glowing power essence, a rare material, and a king's tear. It's roughly slightly better than the iron golem. Maybe it will be different if some psionic crafting came in later on.

I'd personally love to see the gimpy ectoptic adept and the constructor merged into a psionic version of construct crafter prc but that's not my decision.

I'd also love to see Shatter Mind Blank strip all mind-affecting immunity from everyone except true undead and true constructs and lower will save by half manifester level. But hey, not my decision lol

[*PenguinNinja]

Nope, but Telepath is basically unplayable as it is right now. I don't even use my telepath abilities.

[*PenguinNinja]

Okay, so I decided to make an Illithid Psion, using the Illithid Mentalist class, thinking I'd get a brain golem, dominate monsters, and use the will save vs death spells that I thought telepathy had.

Good lord was I wrong.

First of all, the only will save versus death spell is Crisis of Breath, which doesn't even work on Outsiders, (which, if we all remember, consist of about all of the high level mobs) because they apparently don't breathe(?). EDIT: There is another one, Psychic Crush, but it's a level 5 spell, and has a natural -4 to the DC, so, that's out as well.

Second of all, the Dominate Person DC (which is capped at a level 5 spell anyway, so bye bye to DC) is 2 DC lower than what it's supposed to be.

Third of all, the only other save versus death spell is Crisis of Life, which caps out at 17 HD when augmented. (19 PP cost, lol) which is a fort save, as well. For reference, this essensially makes it a HD capped finger of death that's not only blocked by mind spells, but death ward as well.


TL;DR: What the hell?

[*Whitefly]

Psionics is really, really under-tuned. Xndar's made a pretty awesome class, but I feel like he balanced it too weak, for fear that it'd be OP and he'd get some stick off of Cere and the like for putting something too powerful into the game. Maybe not, that's just my theory because I've done the same back when I used to dev for another server.

[*PenguinNinja]

No, he basically copy-pasted the actual Psion spells from PnP into the game, which, just does not work well at all. In PnP Psions are plenty powerful (17 HD is HUGE in PnP, and more than enough) and insta death spells are taken pretty seriously when having a psion with level 7 powers would be a big deal. And the damage spells just aren't tuned well for NWN2, where you get full HP.

[*Whitefly]

If he copy-pasted it from the manual, we'd have cool crystals and bonus feats :P

[*Embersworn]

First of all, the only will save versus death spell is Crisis of Breath, which doesn't even work on Outsiders, (which, if we all remember, consist of about all of the high level mobs) because they apparently don't breathe(?).

The fun part is, this totally should work on Outsiders because breathing is the ONLY bodily function they find necessary (Outsider type does not nead to eat, drink or sleep, but they do need to breathe, as per SRD)...

[*PenguinNinja]

AFAICT Telepathy really needs a boost, is all, and some fixes. Metacreativity has some nice save versus death spells, as does Claristience, Telepathy's are just borked.