Have I Fallen Victim to Monk Syndrome Yet Again? (PF Elocater)

[Drelua]

Please, no flame wars, I'm not starting a thread about monks. I was just looking at the Pathfinder Elocater (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/psionic-prestige-classes/elocater), and they have a bunch of really cool abilities, with 7/10 manifesting. They also have 3/4 BAB, speed bonuses, and a few other things that remind me of a certain much maligned class.

So, am I right to doubt my system knowledge, or is this actually a good class? Even if it isn't as good as I'm hesitant to believe it is, what would be some strong builds? I was thinking something with sneak attack would be a good use of their mobility and flanking bonuses. Thoughts?

[CTrees]

The thing is, unlike monk, a lot of the elocater's abilities synergize with each other well, primarily being either movement, maneuverability, or things that take advantage of being able to be where ever you need to be. Plus it makes a very nice dip for some builds. Taking it all the way? Eh... maybe not.

Monk gets a lot of abilities which not only don't synergize, but often either appear useful despite actually being useless or potentially detrimental, or clash horribly with each other (see: enhanced movement and flurry).

[T.G. Oskar]

Rather than falling into the Monk problem, it seems to be pretty similar to the PF Dragon Disciple: good, but there's a chance there's another class that delivers better stuff.

As it stands, Elocater seems to be built with mobility in mind, but it works somewhat like the Jaunter rather than the Monk (and certainly better than the original Elocater). The 7/10ths manifesting ability makes it better than the Monk as a class (though Psionic Fist can compete in that area), but it seems to work best through flight and ranged weaponry (mostly because of its spatial awareness) rather than with mobile attacks.

Capricious Step adds some extra mobility options that allow Full Attack (it allows you to close in on reach opponents, for example), but you're limiting yourself to 10 ft. worth of speed. The fact that you can flank from different angles and you add some extra points to attack and damage rolls makes it somewhat decent (though you might want to have Two-Weapon Fighting to make it better). Accelerated Action comes a bit too late, though, considering you only get half the benefit of Haste for 5 rounds, but you also get a free chance to manifest a power and twice the benefits you'd otherwise get from Haste (which STACK with Haste), so it's a mixed blessing. Something I'd lower a bit and probably add more turns per day (rather than just 5).

Hard call on that one, but I believe it's like DD; some builds will benefit a lot from it, others not so much. It works fine with some levels of Rogue (with the Scout archetype, of course). The prereq feats, tho, are pointless: Dodge is better than the original, but Mobility and Spring Attack are just loads which you'll probably not use (even with the increased speed).

[Drelua]

That's pretty much what I thought of the class, I just wanted to be sure. My DM took a liking to gestalt, would this work well as a Rogue/Assassin//Psion/Elocater? The abilities seem to drop off towards the end, how many levels should I take? I thought maybe 8 would be a good point to stop, is that too many levels, or should I go for the Dimension Spring Attack?

Non-gestalt, could it work as, something like a Psion 2/Rogue 3/Elocater 8/Swashbuckler 7 with Daring Outlaw, maybe switching the levels around a bit? Would Assassin be a better choice than Swashbuckler?

[Rubik]

Just make sure you don't lose any MLs. Make sure to take levels of psion when you'd lose MLs in elocator. Better to lose sneak attack or assassin goodies than manifester levels.

[Drelua]

Just make sure you don't lose any MLs. Make sure to take levels of psion when you'd lose MLs in elocator. Better to lose sneak attack or assassin goodies than manifester levels.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking about when I was considering playing an Eldritch Knight. The problem is, I've never played a caster before, and it looks somewhat daunting compared to a fighter. Would my non-gestalt build be good for partial manifesting? Obviously it wouldn't be as powerful as if I maxed my manifester levels, but would it be good for a sort of psionic gish build, minus the high level casting? With Swashbuckler I could get BAB 16 and a fair bit of sneak attack damage.

[navar100]

If the campaign has a good amount of dungeon crawls, Elocater will do well. If most if not all combats take place outside, it won't do much. Perhaps the character can take advantage of terrain features with player ingenuity. It's a class for players who like to use a lot of tactics in combat, concerned about where and how to attack more than hit and damage. (Not that there's anything wrong with being primarily concerned about hit and damage.)