Help with Psionics please 3.5

[Smeggedoff]

Hi Playgrounders.
My Swordsage fell to her screaming death yesterday so I need a new character.
I've always liked the Pyro/kineticist concept and today I watched Iron Man again, so I've decided to create a psiforged.

Now, I've never made a Psionic before and have had only brief contact when I looked up soulknife so I'm here asking for help.

Basically, I'm looking at moving into sonokineticist during the build, I think psicrystals are cool, and I'm probably wanting to play a warforged.

Apart from that I got nothin.

Game is starting at level 6, house rules below.

Thanks in advance


Toughness now gives an extra hit point per level
-Improved Toughness now has a prerequisite, Toughness, and gives 2 hit points per level
-Both feats are part of the Fighter bonus feat list

SOUL KNIFE FIXES
Base Attack Bonus: They now recieve full BaB Progression.

Skills: Bumped up to 6+int per level. Class Skills are: Autohypnosis, Bluff, Climb, Concentration, Craft, Disguise, Escape Artist, Hide, Jump, Knowledge Psionics, Listen, Move Silently, Profession, Spot, Tumble, Use Rope

Bonus Feats: Gain a bonus feat every 5th level (5th, 10th, 15th, 20th) from the following list. Deep Impact, Focused Mind Strike, Ghost Attack, Mind Cleave, Mind Empowerment, Psionic Charge, Psionic Meditation, Psionic Weapon, Greater Psionic Weapon, Reckless Offense, Speed of Thought, Swift Mind Strike, Up The Walls, Wounding Attack.

Power Points: Character gains +1 Power point per Class level. PP is refreshed after 5 hours of uninterupted rest or meditation.

Psionic Surge: Gained at level 1. The Soulknife may expend psionic focus on a strike to channel PP into damage at a 1:2 ratio. This damage applies to all attacks that round made with a Psiblade.

edit: oop, additionally my DM is gonna look at psionic body and maybe allow me to take that AND a body feat, I'll let you know.

[Keld Denar]

If you want to do Pyrokineticist, take a look at one of the not so recent Iron Optimization (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=160266) challenges featuring that class. Its all practical optimization that really showcases the strengths of the class.

If you want to play an actual PSION, which is more like a wizard than a light melee style pyrokineticist, you should probably take a look at the Psion's Handbook (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19571514/3.5_Psion_Buildguide_and_Compendium). You need to pick a discipline. Kineticist is a pretty fun discipline, as Psions are decent blasters. Egoists have a lot of fun buffs and Shapers make strong controllers.

What do you want to do?

[Smeggedoff]

Pyrokineticist, however I'm looking at this one (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20030328b) instead of the one in the book as it looks like an updated version and removes the unlimited death attacks thing the original has.

Plus it means I can pick a different element since our party just aquired a Fire/Lightning specialist wizard.

Edit: looking through the thread you link to, the online variant seems to be frowned upon for some reason, not just within the confines of the contest. hmm.

[Urpriest]

It's not an updated version. Check the date. That page was posted before the Expanded Psionics Handbook, so it's not updated. Further, it's 3.0 content: note Alchemy instead of Craft(Alchemy).

[Lateral]

Yeah. Like Urpriest said, that's from 3.0 and isn't really compatible. 3.5 variants are here. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040625e)

Sonokineticist is a decent choice for a soulknife (and probably better than the other four variants). I suggest that you take Psionic Meditation as soon as possible, and maybe Psionic Weapon and Deep Impact or Greater PW as bonus feats. You can take both if you have extra bonus feats.

[Zaq]

If you can get PP from somewhere, I believe that Scouts (CAdv) make decent Pyrokineticists. They're both relatively mobile, and the very nice range on the fire whip means that you can basically circle-strafe someone. In other words, you can attack someone on one turn from a spot 15' west of them, run to be 15' east of them (triggering Skirmish and Improved Skirmish, if you have it), and still attack them. You can get full skirmish damage round after round without changing targets. Add Travel Devotion to taste. Martial Study for a Diamond Mind maneuver gets you Concentration as a class skill.

Other than that, Pyro/Sonokineticist is one of those interesting but weird PrCs that doesn't have a very obvious entry class. It seems like it wants to be a base class. The trick is to find something that you won't mind leaving behind that will still be useful down the road.

[Keld Denar]

Yea, look over that thread I linked. There were like, 12 entries in the competition, and they were almost all unique. Pyrokinticsist is almost better for a non-psionic, Cha based meleer like a Hexblade, assuming you get the PP needed to enter from either race or a feat like Wild/Hidden Talent.

If you REALLY want to be a psion, you should probably stay away from it, as it doesn't advance manifesting. You'll be stuck with a bunch of low level powers and not enough PP to manifest them at full powah, nor the ML to fully augment them, and you'll miss out on key high level powers you'll need to stay relevant.

[Smeggedoff]

Aw nertz. Back to the drawing board then. It means there's a more definite division on whether I pick psion or pyrokineticist.

The builds Keld linked too are nice and all, but are all a bit too multiclassy and race set for me (it is an optimisation challenge after all). Seeing as how the only thing I have set is that I probably want to play a psiforged (though Thri-Keen are neat too, giant mantis men ftw)

[Veyr]

Don't Psiforged get a racial power point reserve? That will serve a Pyrokineticist well...

[Smeggedoff]

Yeah, if you take the Psiforged body feat you get a reserve equal to 1 +1/2 your level. They can also pay 9000 gold for a component to boost that by 6.

[Keld Denar]

Is that an actual reserve (like what an Elan or 1/2 Giant gets) that refreshes each day? I was under the impression that Psiforged just lets you use your body as a giant Cognizance Crystal (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/cognizanceCrystals.htm), which is basically just a battery for PP. If you don't have PP from another source to load into your body, its basically worthless.

[Yuki Akuma]

Technically psiforged treat themselves as cognizance crystals, don't they? So they have to actually put the points in there first?

[Smeggedoff]

Sorry, yes they do. I couldn't remember what cognizance crystals were called (at work) so I thought reserve would substitute, forgetting that the normal power point pool is called a reserve.

[Keld Denar]

I'd suggest you play whatever race you want, and at 1st level, take the feat Hidden Talent. This gives you 2 PP (which makes you [Psionic]) and gives you a single 1st level power. The power you should take is Dimensional Hop from Complete Psionic. It allows you to teleport 10' as a swift action. This is possibly the single greatest utility power that functions best unaugmented at high levels. A 10' teleport is infinitely useful, and now you can do it 2/day, or only 1/day if you still want to be able to psionically focus.

Then, at some point, visit the Earth Node (CPsi) magical location. This gives you 5 more PP/day, assuming you already have a PP pool.

Assuming you are Psiforged (from a flaw?), you can even bank these points on days of downtime, giving you even more uses per day.