[PF] Soulknife/Elocater/Pyrokineticist Build Help

[MidgetMarine]

Note: This is not intended to be an optimization thread. I'm simply looking for a way to make my character concept and planned progression more viable.

In my current campaign, I am playing a Tiefling Soulknife. (Modified tiefling so as to get rid of LA) As part of how I want to play my character and his backstory, I plan to mix the Pyrokineticist PrC and the Elocater PrC to make my character rather badass. However, looking at my current planned progression: [Note: My DM is allowing me to take the Elocater class without the manifestation prereq, as I'm only making it a small dip. And instead of pp progression, Mind Blade enhancement progression.] Here's the basic idea gist of my progression. Taking Soulknife as normal for the first few levels.(Soulknife 5. Take Elocater 1 at lvl 6 (SK 5/Elo 1). Pyro 1 at 7 (SK 5/ Elo 1/ Pyro 1) Elocater 2 at 8 (SK 5/ Elo 2/ Pyro 1) Pyro 2,3 at 9 and 10. (SK 5, Elo 2, Pyro 3 at 10) Elocater 3 at 11 (SK 5, Elo 3, Pyro 3) And then Pyro 4 and 5 at 12 and 13. Then continuing with Soulknife for the rest.

Basically, hopefully taking Scorn earth, personal gravity and dimension step to make a mobile and quick fighter. Taking the Soulknife's Blade skills and versatility to make a powerful melee combatant. As well as the pyrokineticist's useful powers and abilities to augment my combat capabilities.

Unfortunately, I am the party's main melee combatant. And, as the Pyrokineticist and Elocater have sub-par BAB progression and HD, I feel like my capabilities as the party's main melee will be reduced in exchange for the versatility and flavour offered by the two PrCs.

So, I come to you GiTP forums, as many among our community seem to have taken Weapon Focus (Optimization) And while I'm not necessarily trying to optimize, your skills may come to use. So. Any ideas on how to achieve my hoped result without falling behind?

References:
Soulknife (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife)

Pyrokineticist (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/psionic-prestige-classes/pyrokineticist)

Elocater (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/psionic-prestige-classes/elocater)

Best Regards. -MidgetMarine

[MidgetMarine]

Also, Note: DM doesn't want to get too involved with manifesting classes.

[Psyren]

Didn't you have another thread on this?

As far as your progression, you only need 1 level of Pyro to form your whip and transfer all your Mind Blade enhancement and Bladeskills to it. You get all the benefits of being a SK/Pyro from that one level. Going in further and giving up a bladeskill+extra point of mind blade enhancement for a 3d6 fire ray that's subject to SR doesn't seem worthwhile to me. I would go back to Soulknife earlier, or even progress further into Elocater - you're only 1 level away from one of Elocater's best talents, i.e. Flanker. So I would modify your progression to be something like: SK 5/Elo 1/Pyro 1/Elo +4/SK X.

As far as being primary melee, will anyone be up front with you? Soulknives and Elocaters are skirmish-type characters - you can melee, but do so best from the sides/rear. Getting grappled for instance would be a pain, and your fort save will take a hit so you don't want to run into things with poison or that do massive damage.

[MidgetMarine]

Thank you so much! That helps quite a bit. I can definitely see why the 4 levels of pyro could be better used. Though I do love the idea of being able to ligh myself and my weapon On fire while throwing fireballs. The 5th level ability nimbus being the only reason i had the idea of taking pyro past weapon afire. And no, I dont have another thread on this. There is a really recent soulknife/elocater thread by someone else though. That's probably what you're thinking of.

[Psyren]

Thank you so much! That helps quite a bit. I can definitely see why the 4 levels of pyro could be better used. Though I do love the idea of being able to ligh myself and my weapon On fire while throwing fireballs. The 5th level ability nimbus being the only reason i had the idea of taking pyro past weapon afire. And no, I dont have another thread on this. There is a really recent soulknife/elocater thread by someone else though. That's probably what you're thinking of.

So it is! My mistake. Guess it's a popular combo right now :smallsmile:

You can still light your weapon on fire - Flaming and Fiery Burst are both on the Mind Blade enhancement list. The only difference is that your blade advances more quickly this way, letting you add things besides fire more easily, or just plain hit more often.

Nimbus is... underwhelming. By the time you get it, DR/magic doesn't do anything, the touch attack is weak, and +4 Charisma does nothing for you. And all that for a mere 5 minutes/day.

[Hylas]

I would also recommend taking Elocator to 4 for flanker. Beyond that you'll be hurting your blade progression and slowing your psychic strike even more. Although Spatial Awareness would be even better then. You won't want more than Elocator 8, however I'm not up to doing the math to measure the pros and cons of such a build.

Pyro should be either 1, for Fire Lash, or 4 for Weapon Afire. You'll probably get more out of having more Soul Knife or Elocator levels than what Weapon Afire will give you. Yeah, it's damage, but putting all of your eggs into the fire damage basket will be rough at higher levels when everything starts becoming immune to fire damage.

You should ask your DM to change Spring Attack from a "single attack action" to "a standard action" that you can use in the middle of your movement. This will open a lot more synergy for other feats and clear up any sort of problems. For instance, you can use Cleave or Vital Strike while Spring Attacking. Note that Power Attack doesn't work with touch attacks (fire lash).

Hitting should not be an issue with low BAB because you're doing touch attacks. If you want you can beg for fractional BAB to increase it by 1.

For attacking, since you're low on the feats to meet pre-reqs of the PrCs, Vital Strike (see above for rules suggestions) will give you an extra 1d8 per hit while skirmishing. Psionic Weapon and friends can add a bunch of damage, but at the cost of having to recharge your psionic focus between hits. Another route isn't for super damage, but more control. If you get the trip upgrade, toppling strike, and improved toppling strike, and a 15ft whip, you can trip entire armies if you're lucky. The best part is that this doesn't use up any of your feats.

Oh oh, I just thought of something. Get the vicious upgrade on your whip. Then get this feat: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/fire-god-s-blessing
And maybe this: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/fast-healer
But at that point you'd have to take a dip into Fighter just to make it feasible. http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/archetypes/paizo---fighter-archetypes/unbreakable

[MidgetMarine]

Your evidence is beginning to convince me that more than 1 level in pyro might be a waste. Of course, my main goal here is to play Soulknife with a touch of pyro and Elocater rather than Elocater or Pyro with a touch Soulknife. So 8 levels of Elocater might be a little much for me.

[Stone Heart]

In my current campaign, I am playing a Tiefling Soulknife. (Modified tiefling so as to get rid of LA) ...

I am not too familiar with the psionics aspect of this topic, but I am curious as to why you needed to modify the tiefling to get rid of LA in a PF game. Tieflings don't have a level adjustment in pathfinder. Pathfinder largely does not have level adjustment.

If you are using the older tiefling I understand but I just wanted to make sure that you were not making extra work for yourself or losing abilities for no reason.

[ThiagoMartell]

In fact, PF tieflings are more powerful than 3.5 tieflings.

[MidgetMarine]

I am indeed using the older tiefling. My DM felt more comfortable modifying it to fit the current campaign setting.

[MidgetMarine]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that if I got the vicious upgrade for my whip, the 1d6 damage to me would be fire damage. Meaning that as a tiefling with my racial resistance to fire/5 would mean that unless I roll a 6 on the damage to myself, I would take no damage. If that's correct, that seems like an amazing idea.

[MidgetMarine]

It does! It totally does synergize! On the pyrokineticist paragraph on soulknife/pyrokineticist states the following "All damage dealt by the mind blade in this form, including psychic strike damage and bonus damage from weapon abilities, is fire damage" which means my natural resistance to fire allows me to take no damage 5/6 times and only 1 point of damage when I happen to roll a 6. Woot!

Edit: Wow. I just found a really good synergy/exploit. That excites me. Actually excited. Well, if that was actually your intention when you suggested Vicious, then thank you. :D :D :D