Talk:Ascendant (3.5e Class)

Breaking the Action Economy

Just a single dip in this class seems to allow one to break the most important resource of all--actions per round. Feels rather unbalanced to me--perhaps a suggestion might be to allow multiple "copies" of the Ascendant, and even to allow them to copy equipment, but for them to share their action economy? That way, you could be in many places at once, targeting/watching/waiting and so on, but it wouldn't break the action economy.
For example, let's say there's a high-level Ascendant with three copies. Just as they share HP, PP, etc, they also share the action pool. This means that the first could manifest a power via schism (basically an extra non-action, but only one could do so), the second could move and manifest a quickened power and regain focus through Psionic Meditation (swift action and a move action, regains the psionic focus back for all the ascendants, since they share it), and the third could manifest a power normally (standard action). In this way, together they all take the actions of the character together. You still have a number of people who can be in different places at the same time, but it doesn't break the action economy that way. --Ghostwheel 05:02, October 25, 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, the man has a point. On the subject of Disjointment alone, it's similar to Time Walker, but Time Walker was ok because while it was powerful getting a clone, said clone was basically Cohort: You, so it was comparable at getting a late-level leadership (plus, we'll close out the duplicated items loophole later). This however is a bit troubling and I sympathize because I am having trouble keeping the theme of the class while keeping the power on. Sharing hp and everything is a good step, and not duplicating equipment is also good. Not doing the same thing as others and having a single pool is good. Having up to eight psionic focii isn't good, you should share that, and you should have use of wands and the like also limited, otherwise you get some serious "beamspam lol" issues. Just look at a blastificer like my Gneiji character, who was firing off six wands at a time in a nova, and that was strong, even though I burned more charges off and spent more money than what is reasonable.

One of the big problems with this is both the level you start gaining clones (being a powerful class feature, you should probably move it up to at LEAST 3 to discourage dippers), and the nature of their actions. I realize their BAB is crap, but it only takes a single dip right now to get your ubercharging barbarian warblade to suddenly double his damage. Nevermight octupling it. I fear a cleric 1/ascendant 20 who gets some wands of divine power (or chains it) and then proceeds to full attack eight times. Eight clones is a lot of people too, bigger than most parties, were I to give a number, I'd say four... four party memories usually, plus you don't have to worry about your turn taking 20 years to complete. And you can be Link from Four Swords. X3 Well, anyway...

One thing I considered... what about partial actions to help dampen the flow? One guy gets a full action but everyone else only gets partial. That still gives some beamspam lol issues but gone is the worry about eight full attacks, it's now full attack + seven... which is still strong, but far less cheesetastic. Consider. -- Eiji Hyrule 06:50, October 25, 2009 (UTC)

Alright, I've been trundling this problem around in my head for a while, and I think I may have a solution. Right now the progression is "get a disjoinment at first level, and get another dijoinment every seven levels thereafter". If I perhaps changed it to "get a disjoinment at eighth level, and get another disjoinment every eight levels thereafter" then that would require there be an investment in this class in order to get its most powerful feature, discouraging dipping, and make it so that the class still gets the class feature it is focused on. Thoughts? → Rith ^(talk) 20:49, November 6, 2009 (UTC)

The only thing I would say about 8th is that it would still potentially allow a melee character to take eight levels of ascendant and then still have +16 BAB by level 20, which was one concern that came up in the Hole in the Universe build. I think nine or ten, just to discourage this (since the power use limitations already serve as a viable cap on psionics) might be better. -- Jota 21:45, November 6, 2009 (UTC)

Ratings

	Havvy opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	Wizard level or no, the first ability is basically telling parties that they don't need to have anybody with knowledge skills, because I have knowledge (psionics) and it does everything for me. And the idea that you gain basic knowledge of *every* major event in all history (which is also DM subjective) is just insulting. Learning plot should not be handed to somebody on a silver platter. :(