Epic Psionics

[TaiLiu]

When a spellcaster enters the Epic levels, the spellcaster is probably going to pick up the Epic Spellcasting feat.

A Manifester has no equivalent feat (Unless I'm wrong and they do), so what should a manifester do once the manifester reaches Epic levels?

[Amoren]

Rewrite reality so that they do. :P

[tyckspoon]

Pick up Epic Manifesting, as per the Epic Psionic Powers (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/psionicPowers.htm) ...sidebar? I guess? It's pretty much a direct analogue to Epic Spellcasting.

Note that if you don't use it, psionic powers often scale better into Epic than spells do, because they generally don't have hard-written dice caps; instead, you can keep pumping power points into your low level powers to augment them. An Epic Psion has relatively little need to create Epic Inertial Armor, because he can just manifest regular Inertial Armor with 30 pp instead where his Wizard counterpart is stuck with Mage Armor.

[Psyren]

When a spellcaster enters the Epic levels, the spellcaster is probably going to pick up the Epic Spellcasting feat.

A Manifester has no equivalent feat (Unless I'm wrong and they do), so what should a manifester do once the manifester reaches Epic levels?

As tyck mentioned, they do - it's called Epic Manifestation.

[Cor1]

Otherwise, they make do with Improved Overchannel (up to 2x class ML) and Epic Psionic Focus (Use one focus for two effects).

I find that Epic Psionic Focus + Improved Overchannel + Talented + Metapsionics works very, very well... I don't like the Epic Spellcasting/Manifesting mechanism, and only take it when it becomes necessary for the plot. The last character I retired didn't even get to use it in-game, only in the plot epilogue (to 1. resurrect a civilization that his temporal clone had destroyed and 2. create a world with his mind. Genesis would normally have sufficed, but the setting's limits necessitated Epic means.)

Epic Spells/Powers are plot devices, not class features. I always develop them to have weeks-long casting times, just because it makes more sense. (Creating a species in one round? Yeah, right.) But there's the necessity of Uncapped Dispelling...

[TaiLiu]

Pick up Epic Manifesting, as per the Epic Psionic Powers (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/psionicPowers.htm) ...sidebar? I guess? It's pretty much a direct analogue to Epic Spellcasting.

Note that if you don't use it, psionic powers often scale better into Epic than spells do, because they generally don't have hard-written dice caps; instead, you can keep pumping power points into your low level powers to augment them. An Epic Psion has relatively little need to create Epic Inertial Armor, because he can just manifest regular Inertial Armor with 30 pp instead where his Wizard counterpart is stuck with Mage Armor.



As tyck mentioned, they do - it's called Epic Manifestation.

Question answered!

Thank you.

[Rubik]

I'd also look into taking the feat that lets you expend one focus for multiple metapsionic feats. Note that nowhere does it say that you can't stack multiple instances of the same metapsionic feat (though it doesn't work on things like Maximize and Quicken, since the effects don't stack anyway). Multiple instances of Empower Power can give you some really juicy damage output when you hit high levels.

Also, this is the time to find ways to get the metamind PrC's 10th level ability, Font of Power. Infinite power points for 1 minute is especially yummy when you can use the Temporal Reiteration power in CPsi to extend it to all day long.

And auto-scaling powers (such as Energy Conversion) are especially sweet. 3x ML in damage for the same cost in pp? Excellent. Especially given all the ways to boost ML, the sharing-with-a-psicrystal trick, and all the psionic and metapsionic feats that can be stacked on it (especially Split Psionic Ray).

[Cor1]

I'd also look into taking the feat that lets you expend one focus for multiple metapsionic feats. Note that nowhere does it say that you can't stack multiple instances of the same metapsionic feat (though it doesn't work on things like Maximize and Quicken, since the effects don't stack anyway). Multiple instances of Empower Power can give you some really juicy damage output when you hit high levels.

Epic Psionic Focus. That one's straightforward.

The key feat really is Improved Overchannel though. Multiply your ML and limit by two? That's crazy. (Not as stupidly broken as Epic Manifesting, but then nothing is.)

If you have a psicrystal and one level in an other class, so that your 20th Psion level happens when you're level 21, so that you can take two epic feats instead of one, and your psicrystal takes a feat too at its 21st HD, you get three epic feats at level 21. The important ones to take are Epic Manifestation, Improved Overchannel, Epic Psionic Focus, and if you can fit it somewhere, Improved Metapsionics. (It works like Improved Metamagic : -2 on all metapsionics power points costs, minimum 1, but no change if already 2, and yes, one of those clauses makes no sense.)

The others are funny, but you can screw the action economy enough already with being a Psion; do you really need to spend a feat so that your Psicrystal can manifest one power you know, when you can already manifest the powers you know through it? Psions get enough ways to screw the action economy, you can do that without spending a feat slot.

The Epic Expanded Knowledges are good, if your DM lets you PsyRef them in the slots you used for the non-epic ones. But you can simply get a high-level Telepath to teach you Psychic Chirurgery by manifesting it on you, like, for gold, as a spellcasting/manifesting service, for a couple thousand gold, in a city big enough that there will be one available. So, at most, a personal quest, that can be solved in a few rounds, by those levels. (As in "Scry-and-fetch" solved.)


Also, this is the time to find ways to get the metamind PrC's 10th level ability, Font of Power. Infinite power points for 1 minute is especially yummy when you can use the Temporal Reiteration power in CPsi to extend it to all day long.

Yeah, but that one requires taking 10 levels of Metamind, and no one wants to do that. Maybe get a 10th-lvl Metamind Cohort or something, then Metaconcert or Fusion with it. With infinite power points and a schism to manifest Extended Temporal Reiteration every other round, it's pretty much perma-nova.
I thought a whole lot about getting ten levels of Thrallherd (what? That's what Practiced Manifester is for!) so that I could Fusion with both an Incantatrix and an Ardent (Magic Mantle) Metamind, to get Persistent Everything AND Infinite Power Points; that one's a very cool GODmode capstone.
(Extended Persistent Time Stop every round = BILIONS of power points per effective day. Just be an Elan to not age 80 years in that day.)


And auto-scaling powers (such as Energy Conversion) are especially sweet. 3x ML in damage for the same cost in pp? Excellent. Especially given all the ways to boost ML, the sharing-with-a-psicrystal trick, and all the psionic and metapsionic feats that can be stacked on it (especially Split Psionic Ray).

Yeah, Shared Twin Chain Split Energy Conversion Overchanneled to ML 50 has a tendency to kill things dead, what with 1800 dmg before secondary targets. And for Spell/Power Resistance, well, there's the ML 50. (Landing it? Of course, it's a ranged touch attack. Everything Epic has Touch AC 10 or 11, so that's not a concern in theory.) The only problem is charging it, but then you can play around with Twinmaxed Energy Walls placed in circles around yourself, doing a flat 24 dmg for 6 rounds to charge one chaintwinsplitmaxshared conversion ray at full power. (Maybe you can do this in under a round if you begin the charging part while in Extended Temporal Acceleration, if the powers you manifest while accelerated can affect yourself in the same time stream. That one falls under "Ask your DM". RAW, it should work.)

[Urpriest]

The one that lets a Psicrystal get a power is actually more powerful than it appears: it's also the only fully RAW way for a Psicrystal to get a real ML, which in turn is the only way for them to get their own Psicrystal...you see where this is going.

[Cor1]

The one that lets a Psicrystal get a power is actually more powerful than it appears: it's also the only fully RAW way for a Psicrystal to get a real ML, which in turn is the only way for them to get their own Psicrystal...you see where this is going.

Ohgodsohgods Psychic Chirurgery and Psychic Reformation inside the psicrystal. What XP costs, again?

Good one. I never noticed that specific abuse. I already gave both my psicrystals Hidden Talent (and that's how one of them took Psicrystal Affinity to get the second one) and Practiced Manifester to one of them (since we're practically day-long in a Feat Leech loop and I mainly use it to reduce the ML penalty of my Twin Schism).

[Urpriest]

Ohgodsohgods Psychic Chirurgery and Psychic Reformation inside the psicrystal. What XP costs, again?

Good one. I never noticed that specific abuse. I already gave both my psicrystals Hidden Talent (and that's how one of them took Psicrystal Affinity to get the second one) and Practiced Manifester to one of them (since we're practically day-long in a Feat Leech loop and I mainly use it to reduce the ML penalty of my Twin Schism).

I've heard arguments that Psicrystal chaining doesn't work with just Hidden Talent and Practiced Manifester, since Hidden Talent doesn't actually give a "real ML". Hence the Epic version being useful.

[Psyren]

Urpriest is correct - Hidden Talent won't work to let your Psicrystal get a Psicrystal. Besides Epic, the only way to do this is Leadership-chaining. (Your Psicrystal takes the feat to get a psionic cohort, who gets a psicrystal, who...)

[Rubik]

Yeah, but that one requires taking 10 levels of Metamind, and no one wants to do that. Maybe get a 10th-lvl Metamind Cohort or something, then Metaconcert or Fusion with it. With infinite power points and a schism to manifest Extended Temporal Reiteration every other round, it's pretty much perma-nova.
I thought a whole lot about getting ten levels of Thrallherd (what? That's what Practiced Manifester is for!) so that I could Fusion with both an Incantatrix and an Ardent (Magic Mantle) Metamind, to get Persistent Everything AND Infinite Power Points; that one's a very cool GODmode capstone.It's easy enough to get the capstone without worrying about 10 levels of metafailmind.

Three levels in illithid savant (using Metamorphosis or PAO to qualify; this one is a bit fishy, but the latter should work, or you could Fusion with an illithid, as noted below).

Fusion with a metamind and use Astral Seed while you're Fusion'd; when you die and come back, your body is identical to when you used Astral Seed, which means you return Fusioned to the metamind, even if he's standing right beside you when you reform.

You could also Fusion with one and just remain so by manifesting Temporal Reiteration (or having a trap thereof on your armor).

And I believe Wish was expanded in Savage Species to allow you to grab class and racial features, though I could be wrong on that one.

And then there's the sarrukh, but maybe we shouldn't go there...

[Cor1]

It's easy enough to get the capstone without worrying about 10 levels of metafailmind.

...snip...



Yeah, Fusionning with a Metamind then Astral Seed, I forgot that one. I'd do that when also Fusion'ed to the Incantatrix too, to make sure to be able to manifest Persist Temporal Reiteration after your Buff List for the day. Voilà, perma-nova.

There is a way by RAW in the SRD to convert metamagic feats to metapsionics, thus getting Persistent Power for a psifocus and 8 power points, and one version of the feat (the exact same one) in Hyperconscious which is d20, but it's more fun to absorb half an Incantatrix.

I don't like the Illithid savant method, and the Wish method is 3.0 anyway, so while it's still RAW (if it exists and works), it's still "suspicious"... There is no in-game "use class requirements" that lets you emulate those you just don't have, like being an Illithid. (Fusionning with one then Astral Seed then PAO might work though, because then you're half an illithid forever anyway.)