Tweaking an NPC

[Greyfeld85]

I have psychic rogue NPC that's going to be tagging along with my players' group. I've done a lot of research on how to build a psychic rogue (having never dabbled in psionics before, much less this specific class), and I have it hammered out for the most part, but I'm having trouble hammering out her psicrystal. The character is being brought along as a trapsmith, but there won't be a whole lot of search-and-disable type traps where the players are going, so I'm kinda maxing out her sneakiness and giving her a "dagger thrower" motif.

So, that all said, I'm hoping somebody can help me out and answer my questions.

1. I have two feats to choose for the psicrystal, so what would be useful? I don't want to do the whole "feat swap" thing or the "give the crystal manifester levels" thing, because I'm trying to avoid outshining the PCs.

2. Are there psicrystal personalities other than those listed on the SRD?

3. Is the language spoken by the crystal audible, or is it all telepathic?

[Greyfeld85]

Still looking for help!

[ThiagoMartell]

*bites finger, whips out a scroll, draws symbols with blood on the scroll*
Kuchiyose no Jutsu: Psyren!

[Kelb_Panthera]

*bites finger, whips out a scroll, draws symbols with blood on the scroll*
Kuchiyose no Jutsu: Psyren!

Well I'm not psyren, but I hope I'll do.

There may be some more psicrystal personalities in either CPsi or an issue of dragon, but if there are it probably won't make much difference.

As for what you can -do- with a psicrystal, there are some basic options. You could manifest sense link and use him as a mobile spy-cam or you can just trust him to give good descriptions, since you can communicate with him telepathically out to a mile. You could manifest co-opt concetration so that the little guy holds concentration on a power while you do the rib-tickling with your weapon of choice. You can of course use it to deliver touch spells since it shares your sneakiness and can use your body for concealment to begin hiding. There's probably more options still, that I'm just not thinking of ATM.

As for the psicrystal's telepathic speech, it works just like normal telepathy. The psicrystal can "speak" to as many people as are in range, or choose to speak to only some of them. It is completely inaudible, and it is imperceptible to anyone that doesn't have a way to intercept telepathic communication.

[Psyren]

*bites finger, whips out a scroll, draws symbols with blood on the scroll*
Kuchiyose no Jutsu: Psyren!

:smalltongue:




So, that all said, I'm hoping somebody can help me out and answer my questions.

1. I have two feats to choose for the psicrystal, so what would be useful? I don't want to do the whole "feat swap" thing or the "give the crystal manifester levels" thing, because I'm trying to avoid outshining the PCs.

2. Are there psicrystal personalities other than those listed on the SRD?

3. Is the language spoken by the crystal audible, or is it all telepathic?

1. That depends on what role you want the psicrystal itself to play (since it sounds like you don't want to Feat Leech it.) Simple stuff like Skill Foci should work well, particularly for skills like Spot.

2. Not that I know of (Dragon maybe?) but if you're willing to houserule a bit, the Kalashtar have a feat in RoE that lets them compound their psicrystal with two personalities. Thus you could combine any two of the existing ones to form a new one, e,g, Sneaky and Nimble.

3. It's telepathic - only those the psicrystal speaks to can "hear" it.

[Greyfeld85]

1. That depends on what role you want the psicrystal itself to play (since it sounds like you don't want to Feat Leech it.) Simple stuff like Skill Foci should work well, particularly for skills like Spot.

Skill foci isn't a bad idea. The character is more of a cat burglar (lol.. that's funny, because she's a tibbitt :P), and I see her using her psicrystal as sort of a little spy partner. So does that mean i should like, pick up a couple Skill Focus feats and be done with it? Or is there something better I can take?


2. Not that I know of (Dragon maybe?) but if you're willing to houserule a bit, the Kalashtar have a feat in RoE that lets them compound their psicrystal with two personalities. Thus you could combine any two of the existing ones to form a new one, e,g, Sneaky and Nimble.

I was just hoping to find some more ideas to spark my imagination. No worries.