Psi-Healer vs Anyone else with Major Psionics?

[Hotrod]

While I was coming up with my Excel Character sheet and rolling up an elf, I realized something. See, this elf, "Tripton", is a major psionic. To go with his backstory, I had him specialize in healing. That's when it hit me. With eight powers from the healing category, the character was essentially on par with a dedicated psi-healer.

From what I see, there are two chief advantages of a psi-healer vs anyone else with major psionics:
+ They have more ISP.
+ They get some extra bonuses to save.

On the downside:
- Psi-Healers get no super psionics or magic (both of which offer serious benefits over the lesser psionic healing powers).
- Psi-Healers kind of suck at everything except healing.

Now, the 1st Edition healer, by contrast, had some pretty awesome capabilities, including restoration and resurrection! It kind of bites that this class, in the second edition, is relegated to a role that can so easily be filled or eclipsed by other OCCs.

Am I missing something? Is there another way to spin/interpret this class? Or is it meant to be a lesser class, akin to the 'optional OCCs'?

[Nightmask]

Sounds like someone thought the first edition one was 'too powerful' and nerfed it to being no better for the most part than what a non-dedicated psionic could manage. I doubt it was meant to be lesser class (although some seem to think that's all a healer is supposed to be for...) and more an unfortunate result of going too far in reducing its awesomeness from 1st to 2nd.

[Hotrod]

Oh, and if we're talking strictly HP/SDC recovery, priests get UNLIMITED healing touches. They can also remove curses and resurrect.

They can also have psionics. And their bonus to medical skills is higher than the Psi-Healer's. And they get spells. And miracles, blessings, and prayers.

Crimony, and I thought the whole knight/palladin imbalance was messed up.

[Nightmask]

Oh, and if we're talking strictly HP/SDC recovery, priests get UNLIMITED healing touches. They can also remove curses and resurrect.

They can also have psionics. And their bonus to medical skills is higher than the Psi-Healer's. And they get spells. And miracles, blessings, and prayers.

Crimony, and I thought the whole knight/palladin imbalance was messed up.

Doesn't surprise me, people playing priests expect that kind of power but when it comes to psionics some think they shouldn't even be in a fantasy game and they can suffer due to that mindset compared to other things particularly the spellcasters. You'd like the psi-healer to get to be epic like the priest and he gets mediocred instead. Always the option of just using the original version with whatever tweaks are needed to fit the 2nd edition changes (like adding SDC ) so it regains that feeling of competitive balance with the other classes.

[Hotrod]

Don't get me wrong, I can role-play it out. The psi-healer is such a wuss that most folks won't see him/her as a threat. The extra ISP can help, though really, psionic healing is pretty weak and slow, hamstrung as it is by "trance times" and high ISP costs.

Take 'Increased Healing', for example. The healer must go into a trance for 1D6 HOURS for the patient to heal an extra 2HP and 6SDC per day for 2-8 days? In that trance time, before the healing even begins, you could perform 2-7 healing touches (at an average of 5HP or 7SDC per touch) for the same ISP cost. Let's see... do nothing for the rest of the day but sit in a trance so someone can start healing a little faster, or actually start healing someone. Which would you pick? Oh, and by the way, anyone with the right skills can brew up (or buy for 600 gold) some Al-Kazin, which triples the normal healing rate starting immediately (but has no duration listed; I guess it works as long as you need it to).

Or, if you like, consider "Attack Disease". For 12 ISP, the healer can make a sick person feel a little better, at the cost of the healer getting sick. There's no cure, there's no healing, and now the guy taking care of the patient is less capable. Oh, and this power doesn't work on any life-threatening disease, chronic disease, magic disease, or curse. I guess if your more-useful buddy has the sniffles or a tummy-ache, you might use this so he isn't quite so debilitated at a key moment. Otherwise, it's just not useful.

Even the psionic healing touch is only suitable for use when everything is calm, since it takes 2 minutes of doing nothing (trance!) before the healer can make it happen... vs the priest, who can simply touch, and then touch again two melee rounds later. I mean, come on! This means that Priests heal their patients 4x as fast, and they can keep going like the energizer bunny.

The only cost-effective, unique powers of psionic healing is the diagnosis/surgery combination. With it, you could re-attach recently-severed limbs far more conveniently than most restoration spells, and do pretty much anything they do on Grey's Anatomy, minus transplants. Of course, a restoration spell beats this, but such spells cost enormous amounts of PPE.

[kiralon]

The first Ed one is weaker then the second ed one
The first ed one could heal, soothe, exorcise and resurrect (losing 10 isp permanently). Couldnt do restorations
They got some OK bonuses but were limited in skills, and they get their last ability at lvl 3
the major bonus of the 1st ed healer was their isp was based off pe, and they could heal more then once in a round if they had more actions in a round. Healers were combat healers and priests were for after action healing.

The 2nd ed one is better, but you are still better off taking a mind mage then a psi healer. psi healer gets less isp

I made the healer like 1st ed but from level 4 up they can choose 1 psi healer ability per level.

[eliakon]

My change was I gave them healing touch as a priest, it gave them a boost in healing, but didnt take all the uniquness from the priest (prayers, miracles, magic). I also made it explicitly 'psi' healing...it just costs no ISP.

[Goliath Strongarm]

All the psi classes are broken. The MM is way over powered, the healer is way UNDER powered, and the mystic is just garbage....


The only way psionics work well, is if you remove all of the psionic classes, and only allow minor or major psionics.

[Hotrod]

I don't consider the Mystic to be a garbage class at all. They just develop differently. My experience has been that unless you have a GM who throws new spells at your character every adventure or two, mystics generally pick them up faster. The extra psionics are a nice boost as well. The sensitive OCC seems a bit odd to me; the OCC abilities are potentially useful, but their chances of success are so low that they can't be relied on.

Really, I don't mind having a power discrepancy between different classes. It gives players and GMs a viable range of power level options. A psi-healer or sensitive would work well for a group of common-people OCCs like fletchers, artisans, blacksmiths, scholars, and vagabonds. That might make for a pretty cool campaign, in fact.

I just don't like a specialty class to be so totally outclassed in its own specialty by other, more-versatile classes.

[SittingBull]

I don't consider the Mystic to be a garbage class at all. They just develop differently. My experience has been that unless you have a GM who throws new spells at your character every adventure or two, mystics generally pick them up faster. The extra psionics are a nice boost as well. The sensitive OCC seems a bit odd to me; the OCC abilities are potentially useful, but their chances of success are so low that they can't be relied on.



>>>>>>>But it would still be relied on since the Sensitive OCC in PF is the only sensing job or race I have seen in PF. That one ability makes it sough after I think.



Really, I don't mind having a power discrepancy between different classes. It gives players and GMs a viable range of power level options. A psi-healer or sensitive would work well for a group of common-people OCCs like fletchers, artisans, blacksmiths, scholars, and vagabonds. That might make for a pretty cool campaign, in fact.

I just don't like a specialty class to be so totally outclassed in its own specialty by other, more-versatile classes.

>>>>>>>I agree. The healing job shouldnt be out healed by the mind melter.