Show Posts
1
Suggestions / A better psi fix
« on: September 18, 2020, 12:28:31 am »
So I have been looking at the game and the changes and frankly it doesn't really fix anything. You still can play all four schools, you still have all the abilities at full strength, you still don't really get the goal of build diversity.
So instead of shoehorning in a D&D spellbook mechanic maybe go the opposite route and embrace making psi more like a weapon as well as the crafting system. IN that you have a gauntlet(s) that act as a "focus" for abilities. Which fits since we already have headbands and armor affecting psi builds. It would even make sense with Force Emission and the gauntlets could double as an unarmed weapon.
From there you choose one school to "attune" the gauntlet to, this school would operate as it always has. I.e. with 100% accuracy, duration, and power. The unattuned schools take hits in all three categories based on INT/WILL with different categories affected in different portions. Or as example accuracy could be governed by will, power by intelligence, and duration a combination. Higher of course means less reduction, but it still is significant. But more significant at lower values. I was thinking for a normal 8/8 starting value the penalties would be 20% reduction in accuracy, half duration, and -15% in power. Just throwing our numbers, but the point is that they are significant but still workable penalties.
From here the gauntlet allows more diversity in play. You could build the gauntlet to give more more in power, duration, or an innate crit chance (like the feat) for a particular school or even more for a particular ability of said school. Or you could build the gauntlet to negate the penalties of a second school. You could even have alterations to abilities such as force wall acting as an AoE stasis, or Force Emisison allowing you to switch to a second weapon to buff damage. The dev could go as crazy as they wanted with this system, and it would benefit builds that aren't strictly psion as well.
This would also make it easier to fine tune psion abilities as you can change the abillity, the values given by equipment, or the penalties non-attuned schools get. At this point since there are guilds for playing a 4 school psion still, and they are still pretty much just as powerful and versatile, I think the answer to build diversity is to actually give meaningful choices to playstyle in the form of equipment and penalties based on player stats.
So instead of shoehorning in a D&D spellbook mechanic maybe go the opposite route and embrace making psi more like a weapon as well as the crafting system. IN that you have a gauntlet(s) that act as a "focus" for abilities. Which fits since we already have headbands and armor affecting psi builds. It would even make sense with Force Emission and the gauntlets could double as an unarmed weapon.
From there you choose one school to "attune" the gauntlet to, this school would operate as it always has. I.e. with 100% accuracy, duration, and power. The unattuned schools take hits in all three categories based on INT/WILL with different categories affected in different portions. Or as example accuracy could be governed by will, power by intelligence, and duration a combination. Higher of course means less reduction, but it still is significant. But more significant at lower values. I was thinking for a normal 8/8 starting value the penalties would be 20% reduction in accuracy, half duration, and -15% in power. Just throwing our numbers, but the point is that they are significant but still workable penalties.
From here the gauntlet allows more diversity in play. You could build the gauntlet to give more more in power, duration, or an innate crit chance (like the feat) for a particular school or even more for a particular ability of said school. Or you could build the gauntlet to negate the penalties of a second school. You could even have alterations to abilities such as force wall acting as an AoE stasis, or Force Emisison allowing you to switch to a second weapon to buff damage. The dev could go as crazy as they wanted with this system, and it would benefit builds that aren't strictly psion as well.
This would also make it easier to fine tune psion abilities as you can change the abillity, the values given by equipment, or the penalties non-attuned schools get. At this point since there are guilds for playing a 4 school psion still, and they are still pretty much just as powerful and versatile, I think the answer to build diversity is to actually give meaningful choices to playstyle in the form of equipment and penalties based on player stats.