Psionic action economy breakage: "it's my turn until I run out of pp"? [answered]

[TuggyNE]

I've heard that Psions can repeatedly blast their enemies until they fail a save and die, limited only by available pp (or, with cheese, not even that). In fact, one post I vaguely remember suggested that even against enemies with absurdly high saves, evasion and mettle, and enormous HP, such a Psion can still easily win simply by waiting for enough natural 1s. But I'm not seeing it. Temporal acceleration, like time stop, leaves enemies invulnerable. Schism and fission give a limited boost, not an indefinite one, and neither combos all that well with temporal acceleration. Hustle only gives move actions, and only in trade for swifts.

I've poked around on the web, but haven't found the answer. What am I missing?

[Psyren]

What you're missing is CPsi - Synchronicity (and Anticipatory Strike), to be precise.

Check the Psionic tricks handbook in my sig, particularly "Mad Minute." Temporal Acceleration is only used once, to get the loop going.

Note that you will need infinite/arbitrarily large PP as well to be able to handle any encounter. MoI recharge, Earth Power and Manifester Arrows are ways to get you there.

[tyckspoon]

You're looking for one of these two tricks:

Mad Minute- the more 'standard' infinite-action loop, but requires a 9th level power to pull off.
The Mad Minute uses Temporal Acceleration, Fission, Affinity Field, and Synchronicity to effectively grant you infinite standard actions, at least until you run out of power points (remember never to go so low that you can't manifest an augmented Bestow Power to recharge).
Feats:
Powers: Affinity Field, Fission, Synchronicity, Temporal Acceleration
Method:

1. Manifest Temporal Acceleration as a swift action for at least 3 rounds
A. Manifest Fission as your Standard Action for Temporal Acceleration round 1
B. Fissioned copy manifests Affinity Field
C. Fissioned copy manifests Synchronicity, augmented to 3 PP, which effects you both (via Affinity Field)
2. You use your standard action from Synchronicity to do as you will, your Fissioned Copy uses its standard action to manifest Synchronicity, repeat from 2.

Casual Disconcern For the Action Economy: Requires a couple of generally OP ACFs, can be done at much lower level with them in play.
Garryl came up with this trick, which is yet another way for psychics (in this case, Ardents) to tell the Action Economy to shut up and sit down.

Doable as early as Ardent 10.
Requires: Ardent 10, Dominant Ideal ACF, Substitute Powers ACF, Time mantle, Synchronicity power, Linked Power feat.
Optional: Bestow Power power, Metapower feat.

With Dominant Ideal (set to Time Mantle), you spend 2 PP less (minimum 1 PP) and do not expend your psionic focus when using metapsionic feats or augmentations on powers from the chosen mantle. With Substitute Powers, you can put Synchronicity into the Time mantle. Thus, you can spend 1 PP to manifest Synchronicity linked to Synchronicity, which does not cost you any actions effectively, and grants you an extra standard action in the next round. Since you haven't expended your psionic focus, you can do this again (manifesting the power using the standard action granted by the first Synchronicity) to get as many extra actions as you want in the next round at the cost of 1 PP per action.

The option for the recharge comes when you link Synchronicity to Bestow Power. For 1 PP (base 4 PP, reduced by 4 between Metapower and Dominant Ideal), you gain 2 PP next round at no effective action cost to you. Thus, the amount of PP you can have access to increases at an exponential rate, close to doubling every round. Even if your DM rules that you can't have more PP in your pool at once than your normal maximum, you can still "float" the excess PP from round to round using the automatically readied standard actions granted by a linked Synchronicity manifested from the previous round.

Both key on the Comp. Psi power Synchronicity, which is the bit you were missing; both the Mad Minute and Garryl's Disconcern are essentially methods of making Synchronicity affect you twice for every manifestation, thus giving you an extra action beyond the one used to manifest the power.

[Psyren]

You don't actually need Affinity Field though. Twinned Synchronicity does the job just as well; augmented by two points to get the "unspecified action" version, you can get the whole ball rolling as early as level 9. (Use Schism to regain your focus each round, as that is a purely mental action.)

[TuggyNE]

Awesome, thanks guys.