Help with lvl11 Psychic Rogue

[RCgothic]

So I've decided for a campaign I'm applying for (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13508630&postcount=1) to use a Psychic Rogue (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723b). It's lvl11, 32pt buy, and standard WBL.

I've never played a manifester before, and my effort so far seems a little less than spectacular. My sheet in progress is here (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=423822). The Human Paragon levels are certainly negotiable.

The party role I'm looking for is face/sneak whilst remaining relevant in combat, but the powers seem less than spectacular and right now I'm hardly gaining anything over a straight Rogue. Plus I don't really know how to fight as a psychic. I guess I'll need TWF to capitalise on sneak attack, and Weapon Finesse to mitigate dumping STR, but beyond that I have no idea what I'm doing. As a vague idea, animals/mounts have been ruled as 300g per HD.

Both build and tactics help readily accepted! :smallsmile:

[Daftendirekt]

Wonder what campaign this is for... :smallwink:

Have you checked out Psyren's handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=234327)?

[RCgothic]

Practically the first place I looked! But I still feel slightly like I'm missing something. It doesn't really offer much in the way of tactics. I also feel like the powers I've chosen are a bit meh in combat - I don't know if by simply 'picking the blue ones' I've got the best deal, or why they're so fantastic.

In addition, despite human bonus, high int and 6 skill points per level I don't feel like I have enough to do everything I want to do, whilst without sneak attack and some way to guarantee off hand/iterative attacks (difficult for a mobile melee-er) I'm likely to be hitting for a mere d6 damage which seems borderline pitiful at lvl11.

I'm basically just a mess! :smallsigh:

I need people to help set me back on the right direction.

To reiterate, the role I'm after is: Sneak/Face with combat relevance.

[eggs]

I don't think Human Paragon is going to do much for you. Especially if you don't have a specific feat that you need to fit in.

Hidden Talent (Dimension Hop) is often a locked feat for PsyRogues, since it's just so much cheaper than Hustle (which, as a nitpick, is 5 PP for a PsyRogue), and its utility functions are often worth a feat of their own.

Telekinetic Force and Control Object are probably going to be redundant. I'd replace CO with something different, like Feat Leech or Detect Hostile Intent.

For combat, PsyRogues work more like Rogues than Psions. Find a way to generate sneak attacks without wasting actions (eg. swift moving into a flanking position and making a bunch of natural attacks, using rapid shot with Link Power+Psionic Grease or just buying a ring of blinking).

[Psyren]

To be honest, there aren't really that many tactics to give you :smallsmile:

You're a rogue - just with a few extra tricks - and that's how you play. You'll want the standard rogue-y things, like TWF, Darkstalker and Craven, and by the way yes you WILL be feat-starved since you also want stuff like Psionic Meditation and Hidden Talent and Expanded Knowledge and...

Anyway. My advice for combat relevance (aside from the usual strategy of flank and stab) is Energy Ray + Psionic Shot. Electric Ray is pretty much auto-hit if your enemy is wearing armor, and 7d6 with the equivalent of a first-level slot is not shabby at all. Sonic Ray can also smash tough locks for you, or even sunder in a pinch. Grab Crystal Shard as a backup and go to town. And if you run dry, PS will give your hand crossbow some oomph too.

If you prefer melee, grab Hammer, and orient the remainder of your powers around defense (DP, CA, FS, Vigor/SP etc.)

Concerning the skills, I feel your pain - 6+Int is hard for a skillmonkey, even an Int-focused one, and you have even more places to put them. I personally see no problem with Human Paragon (and should have mentioned it in the guide - I'll make a note of that!), especially since it gets you access to UMD/Psicraft. (Speaking of which, did your DM take pity on you and give you the latter for free? Point out to him that every other manifester gets it and hopefully he'll see reason.) However, strongly consider going straight Psyrogue, since without it you'll be ready to grab special abilities, including the almighty Skill Mastery.

But what's this silliness about not gaining anything over straight Rogue? Can a straight rogue blow away swarms? Hide in a bookshelf? Be immune to surprise? Fly without items? Hide the entire party along with himself? Etc.

[RCgothic]

But what's this silliness about not gaining anything over straight Rogue? Can a straight rogue blow away swarms? Hide in a bookshelf? Be immune to surprise? Fly without items? Hide the entire party along with himself? Etc.

Probably just a symptom of how confused I am!:smalleek:

On Human Paragon:

I get a feat, psicraft as a permanent class skill, and +2 INT, in exchange for 1 manifester lvl, uncanny dodge and skill mastery.

The +2 INT gives me a NET +2 skill points and -1PP.

Looking at it like that it's probably not much different from straight Psy Rogue. Hmmm. I'll ask about Psycraft. Why's it so important again?


Anyway. My advice for combat relevance (aside from the usual strategy of flank and stab) is Energy Ray + Psionic Shot. Electric Ray is pretty much auto-hit if your enemy is wearing armor, and 7d6 with the equivalent of a first-level slot is not shabby at all. Sonic Ray can also smash tough locks for you, or even sunder in a pinch. Grab Crystal Shard as a backup and go to town. And if you run dry, PS will give your hand crossbow some oomph too.

Those would be incredibly useful, but not on the Psy Rogue's powers list?

[Psyren]

Looking at it like that it's probably not much different from straight Psy Rogue. Hmmm. I'll ask about Psycraft. Why's it so important again?

You need it to use stones, dorjes and some other psionic items; there are several useful powers on your list that are better suited to item form, like Psionic Knock, Body Purification or the aforementioned Control Winds.

UPD lets you do the same of course - but you can't take 10 on UPD checks, even with Skill Mastery, and given your stat reliance your Cha isn't likely to be stellar either. UPD doesn't help you identify items or active powers either.

You also can't use UPD other manifester's heads, though that one doesn't come up very often in my experience.

EDIT: Mistake above, Psicraft is only needed for Power Completion items, not Power Trigger items (dorjes and psicrowns.) But you do need it to identify these things, which could potentially include discovering their command thought.



Those would be incredibly useful, but not on the Psy Rogue's powers list?

That's what Hidden Talent/Expanded Knowledge are for. Note in the guide that I included a section on the Powers page for powers you might want to pick up outside their main list - if you don't know what else to get with your feats, consider taking EK and looking through that list.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I would personally prefer using Psychic Assassin over Psychic Rogue, ideally Spellthief 1/ Psion 4/ Psychic Assassin 6/ Slayer 9. You'll need Practiced Manifester to qualify, and Able Learner will be extremely useful. Get Mind Cripple asap as it can outright disable many high HP opponents in a single full attack with TWF. The Spellthief dip will enable you to use Wands of any Wizard spells of the schools that class gets access to, including Wraithstrike. If you don't want to play an evil character, see if you can lose the Death Attack class feature in exchange for ignoring the alignment and special prerequisites. There are nonevil assassins (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070401a) after all, and Mind Cripple is more likely to end an opponent in the surprise+first round than Death Attack anyway.

If you want to go anti-caster, use Whisper Gnome with Extra Silence and Silencing Strike, though that will exclude you from taking Able Learner. If you can start out having bought off a level adjustment, get Dark Creature and be only 3,000 xp behind instead of down a full level.

Take Item Familiar (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/itemFamiliars.htm) and the 10% XP bonus will more than make up for that 3k cost. An Item Familiar is an intelligent item, which is considered a construct and thus a creature, and creatures cannot be disabled/destroyed by dispelling, disjoining, and dead/antimagic areas. If you make it a worn item and wear something over it, opponents won't have line of sight or line of effect to it to target it with sunder, disarm, or slight of hand attempts. For its first special ability give it a special purpose and the Dimension Door dedicated power, so it can use its own action each round D-Door your character. You can make it a Ring of Invisibility and it can activate itself at the end of each of your turns instead of using D-Door.

Get a Psicrystal with Vigor and Share Pain, and keep Share Pain active on it at all times. Remember that its Hardness 8 will reduce every instance of damage to it by that much, and even if you're hit by an effect that would bypass hardness, Share Pain does not bypass hardness and that is the source of any damage transferred to the Psicrystal. You can even hire an NPC spellcaster to cast a CL 20 Hardening* (SpC) on it, to give it an extra +10 Hardness permanently for only 1,250 gp. You can share your buffs with the Psicrystal, so when you manifest Vigor it also gains just as many temporary HP as you do. As long as you keep it out of line of sight/effect from opponents, such as in an athletic cup, they cannot target it directly or affect it with AoEs.

Obligatory save-game-trick link (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=146470#2), considering the campaign description.

*Hardening on the Psicrystal:
Note that Hardening specifies an item rather than an object as its target, and per its Spell Resistance (object) line, "This notation does not mean that a spell can be cast only on objects. Some spells of this sort can be cast on creatures or objects."

The term item is not strictly defined in game terms, as it can sometimes refer to any object, sometimes to only magical items, other times even class features, etc. It may have been the intent of Hardening to only be able to target objects, but the errata completely skips that spell, and RAW it's not restricted to just objects. Note that a bonus to a nonability is of no benefit, so it should only be effective on targets that already have a hardness value. Paper is specified at Hardness 0, whereas most creatures have no Hardness at all.

[Psyren]

If all you wanted Psychic Assassin for was Mind Cripple, base Psyrogues get it too (without alignment reqs or losing any ML.)

It's worth noting that the non-evil assassin you linked to was an April Fool's joke; make of that what you will.



(I won't comment on the Item Familiar stuff, save that if the OP can get all that past their DM, more power to them.)

[Daftendirekt]

It's worth noting that the non-evil assassin you linked to was an April Fool's joke; make of that what you will.


Funny that it appears legit and normal. The cat-related stuff was all obviously meant for the funny, but the avenger looks like any other variant.

[Psyren]

Oh, I'm fine with the Avenger personally, but the OP still has a right to know the context.

Though unless I'm missing something, the point is moot anyway since Assassin (psychic or otherwise) isn't required here.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

If all you wanted Psychic Assassin for was Mind Cripple, base Psyrogues get it too (without alignment reqs or losing any ML.)

The build I proposed gets 15/20 Psion manifesting, at a manifester level of 19. Starting at level 11, that's 15 powers known of up to 4th level and 46 base powerpoints, versus a Psychic Rogue's 9 powers known of up to 3rd level and 24 base powerpoints. Plus his power list allows for far better tricks/shenanigans than the Psychic Rogue power list.

The game is set in a Tippyverse-under-demolition, with automatic-reset traps of beneficial spells. The ultimate cheese is already in play, Item Familiar probably won't even scratch the surface. With that in mind, you should definitely get a blank spellbook (15 gp, 100 pages) and put an automatic-reset spelltrap (CA p141) on every page that bestows a beneficial spell (Cure Light Wounds, Lesser Restoration, Endure Elements, Delay Poison, etc.).

[Psyren]

My bad, I missed that Psion (rather than Psychic Rogue) was the base class being advanced there. Up to the OP then.

[whibla]

(I won't comment on the Item Familiar stuff, save that if the OP can get all that past their DM, more power to them.)

Since the OP said 'applying for', I'm going to guess that it's a PbP game. That at least will spare any book shaped bruises when she asks (either for that or the hardness shennanigans)...

...whether or not it will aid in getting the character accepted is another matter.

[RCgothic]

Thanks everyone for their help, it has been very enlightening! :smallsmile:

I'll be going straight Psy Rogue with bow/ray (I figure melee will be well catered for), and Scout/Face focus on skills, and the feat/power discussion has been very helpful. :smallsmile:

I realise I'm not heavily optimising, but I am at least now confident I won't be rubbish. Thanks again! :smallsmile:

[Psyren]

Since you're going for a ray-focused build, you'll want Psionic Meditation - check my guide for the 32 PB spread I'd recommend.

Craven and Psionic Shot should make you very presentable in combat for little cost, netting you 7d6 + 11 for 1 PP (+1d6 per additional PP spent), RTA to hit. And if you get really mad you can push out 18d6+11, though you'll run dry fast if you keep that up.