[3.5] Warforged Shaper Feat/Power selection

[Rejusu]

So after a lengthy absence from the playground (and from D&D in general) I'm back, because I need your helpful advice.

Finally getting to play again in a new campaign starting at level 5, and since my last two characters were very gishy (Psychic Warrior and Druid) I've decided to focus on being a pure caster/manifester this time. So I landed on playing a Psion. Initially I was tempted by a Kalashtar telepath but with Thrallherd (annoyingly the other PrC options for Telepath are kinda meh) off the table and a huge chunk of potential enemies being immune to mind-affecting I shelved it for the time being.

Now though I think I'm set on playing a Warforged Shaper later going into the Constructor PrC. I want to mostly leave combat to my robots and focus on control/utility. With that in mind I'm having trouble narrowing down my feats and powers.

FEATS

I don't yet know if flaws are allowed, but here's the feats I'm definitely going to start with:

Boost Construct - Required for Constructor, and very nice on its own.

Psicrystal Affinity - Not sure if it gets feats, but it's something no Psion should be without. Going to give it the Artiste personality as +3 to ALL craft checks meshs very well with my Shaper powers.

Psiforged/Adamantite Body - I'm definitely going to pick up a body feat, but I'm torn for choice. While the usefulness of Psiforged is arguable it does open me up for getting components like the Expanded Reservoir. Although at the same time that component is only a slightly better (in terms of cost to PP storage) cog crystal that takes up a body slot. Adamantite body on the other hand gives me armour that just breaks the WBL chart.

Here are feats I want, but don't know when to pick up:

Extend Power - One of the go-to Metapsionic feats

Practiced Manifester - Obviously not worth it until I lose my first ML (which will be at character level 7) but I wonder if I should get it at the first available oppurtunity after that.

Psicrystal Containment - I figure I should wait until I have more need of my focus before going for this.

Psionic Meditation - Excellent feat, but will be quite tough to qualify for with the Warforgeds -2 to Wis. Will ultimately depend on my rolls I think.

Overchannel/Talented - These need to be taken as a combo really. I'm wondering if my focus on utility will really take advantage of them that much.

Skin of the Construct - The main potential is the 20ft fly speed early on, but I reckon I can get better flight later without burning a feat.

Special

There's also whether to give up my fifth level bonus feat for the Personal Construct Shaper ACF as well. I think it's a choice between taking that and taking the 10th level capstone of Constructor. Personally I'm leaning towards taking it. I have no idea if we'll reach level 15 and being able to do it early, even with the limitations, is very nice. Plus 10th level constructor means affecting my powers known as it loses another ML.

Powers

Well by fifth level I'll know 11 powers, a minimum of 5 which must be 1st level, 4 which can be no higher than 2nd, and 2 that can be up to 3rd.

1st

Here are the ones I have to have:

Astral Construct - Goes without saying. I plan on failing to mention the nerf it got in CPsi, I'll just be mindful not to oversaturate the battlefield with them.
Minor Creation - Fantastic utility, and scales without the need to augment.
Ecto Protection - Awful power, but a prerequisite for constructor.

Here are the ones I'd like:

Detect Psionics - This depends on if the DM is employing transparency or not. If I can't detect magic with it I'm ditching it.
Crystal Shard - Useful to have some direct damage powers, again I plan on failing to mention the CPsi nerf. Otherwise energy ray.
Entangling Extoplasm - Nice battlefield control.
Inertial Armour - Not much point if I go for Adamantite body, and it's not like I plan on being in combat anyway.
Vigor - While I know that due to the combo this power is heavily praised I think I'll only go for it if I have spare power slots. Ideally I don't want to be taking damage.

2nd

Here's the only one I really need:

Psionic Repair Damage - Required for Constructor PrC, but on a Warforged it gives me amazing self-healing capability too.

Here's some that I'd like:

Control Sound - Nice utility power.
Levitate - Not as good as flight, but a way to avoid combat. Good utility potential too, levitate and have a flying construct tow me.
Share Pain - Only if I take Vigor.
Psychoportive Shelter - Nice... but a tent works just as well 90% of the time. Assume no trans-dimensional power cheese.
Crystalstorm - Again having some direct damage up your sleeve is always useful. No save is very nice too.

3rd

There's only a few third level powers I really have my eye on:

Time Hop - Great utility, and good in combat against those with low will saves.
Dispel Psionics - Again only with transparency, I doubt we'll see enough Psionics for it to be useful otherwise.
Energy Wall - Good AoE power.

Skill wise I'll be maxing Con (naturally) and trying to invest in a couple of craft skills for use with my creation powers. I was thinking sculpting and alchemy would be the most generally useful.

ALSO WORTH NOTING:

The DM wants to streamline the game a bit and level the party at his own pace. As a result we're not using XP. Essentially this puts anything with an XP cost off the table. Thankfully we probably won't get to the point where it becomes a real issue (due to the introduction of wish and what not) but it does mean no crafting feats and no psychic reformation.

Also no cheesy tricks, I'm looking at you manifester arrows.

At any rate, sorry for the long post. Hopefully someone can give me some insight that'll help me make my choices.

[Psyren]

First off, have you read the handbook? (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=10238.0) This will help your power choice a lot.

Your decision to max Concentration, Sculpting and Alchemy are wise. Don't forget Psicraft and Know (Psionics) as well, as you'll likely be covering those. You should find out about the transparency thing ASAP, it affects a lot of your power choices.

I wouldn't bother with Practiced Manifester until very late levels (if then.) +1 ML isn't worth a feat. As for Psionic Meditation, if you don't have the stats for it then you can skip Overchannel and Talented too. (Or at least, stick with just Overchannel and mitigate the damage at higher levels.) You could also do without metapsionics/psicrystal containment if you can't meditate. A full-round action to focus means doing nothing that expends it. So find out your stats asap as well.

Lastly, Psiforged/Adamantite largely comes down to preference. Do note that Adamantite Body, while it gives you a ton of AC, will also lower your move speed and initiative.

[Rejusu]

First off, have you read the handbook? (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=10238.0) This will help your power choice a lot.

Indeed, most of the build is based off it and it gave me a pretty solid starting point. I'm just being indecisive when it comes to the finer details.


Your decision to max Concentration, Sculpting and Alchemy are wise. Don't forget Psicraft and Know (Psionics) as well, as you'll likely be covering those. You should find out about the transparency thing ASAP, it affects a lot of your power choices.

Aye, we're planning on going through character generation on Thursday but I plan on having pretty much everything but my stats figured out before then. We've got a couple of new players and I'm more familiar with D&D than the DM is so I'll be looking to spend most of my time helping them out. I'll ask him tonight when he gets back.

Yeah Psicraft and Knowledge are on there as well. I was more interested in getting an opinion on my craft choices. Artiste will help me when I need to do something outside the scope of Sculpting or Alchemy, but I think they'll cover most of my bases. Especially since I think Alchemy can also be used to make poisons at a -4 penalty. And since I'm immune to them might come in handy.


I wouldn't bother with Practiced Manifester until very late levels (if then.) +1 ML isn't worth a feat. As for Psionic Meditation, if you don't have the stats for it then you can skip Overchannel and Talented too. (Or at least, stick with just Overchannel and mitigate the damage at higher levels.) You could also do without metapsionics/psicrystal containment if you can't meditate. A full-round action to focus means doing nothing that expends it. So find out your stats asap as well.

Yeah, it's probably not that worth it if I'm only losing the 1 ML. If I took the Constructor capstone though I'd probably have to have it on there. I think I'll definitely have to get at least a 15 or 14 I can dump in Wis. We'll be rolling stats though, so I just have to hope for high rolls. I think even without meditation Psicrystal Containment is pretty viable though. Even if I can't really regain focus in combat it still means I have two focuses rather than one per encounter. Overchannel/Talented though I think will come down to whether flaws are allowed or not. If I can pick up the necessary feats fairly early being able to overchannel will definitely make up for the lost manifester level. I might have to see if I can squeeze Quicken Power in somewhere as well.


Lastly, Psiforged/Adamantite largely comes down to preference. Do note that Adamantite Body, while it gives you a ton of AC, will also lower your move speed and initiative.

Ah good point, I just looked and unlike the Warforged's regular composite plating the Adamantine body feat specifically says you're treated as wearing heavy armour. Which I think by RAW means you'd take the penalties associated with not being proficient with it. Psiforged it is then. Having somewhere to stick leftover PP will probably come in handy. I can always just slap a +1 on my composite plating. Plus I don't plan on getting up close and personal.

Thanks for the input.

[Psyren]

Well, you don't actually take nonprof penalties with any of the armors. Just ACP and speed.

When you know your stats you can plan the build out a bit more :smallsmile:

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Personal Construct (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070411a) lets you manifest an Astral Construct as a swift action by spending your psionic focus. It's only one specific construct with predetermined abilities, but you can switch it up each time you level.

Definitely learn Share Pain and keep it active on your psicrystal so you'll take half damage from all sources. Its Hardness 8 reduces every instance of damage it takes from Share Pain, regardless of the damage type of the original attack. Keep it in a compartment on your person so opponents will never have line of sight/effect to it, so it can't be attacked directly and doesn't get hit by AoEs. Put a Healing Belt on it and it can heal you during combat. You can manifest Vigor and share it with the psicrystal to get a HP cushion that's effectively 10 hp per pp spent.

[Rejusu]

Well, you don't actually take nonprof penalties with any of the armors. Just ACP and speed.

When you know your stats you can plan the build out a bit more :smallsmile:

Might be a case of specific overrides general. Although the body feats don't specify anything outside of the speed/ACP/Max Dex/spell failure they also include the line:

"you are considered to be wearing heavy* armor"

* Replace with light/medium/etc depending on the specific feat.

The PHB states you take ACP to Str and Dex checks (including attack rolls/initiative) for wearing armour you aren't proficient with. So as a RAW reading I would say that if you're considered to be wearing heavy armour you'd take penalties if you weren't proficient with heavy armour.

I thought that's what you meant when you said it'd lower my initiative?

[Psyren]

FAQ (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ask/20070123a) clarified that you don't take the penalties. After all, you're proficient with your own body.

I made a mistake as far as ACP though, I thought that list included initiative; it's only Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Hide, Jump, Move Silently, Sleight of Hand, and Tumble.

[Rejusu]

FAQ (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ask/20070123a) clarified that you don't take the penalties. After all, you're proficient with your own body.

I made a mistake as far as ACP though, I thought that list included initiative; it's only Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Hide, Jump, Move Silently, Sleight of Hand, and Tumble.

Fair enough. In that case it's back to being a tougher choice. Good news is that my DM just green-lit transparency. So that simplifies my power selection somewhat. Although I'm not going to touch Psionic Identify. A whole day of manifesting per item? No thank you. Also with transparency in place I could just invest in an artificers monocle. Saves me a power and a day of manifesting. Plus the idea of a Warforged wearing a monocle is very comical, I just need a top hat to complete the ensemble.

He wasn't too thrilled about Warforged though, he hadn't heard about them before so maybe it wasn't such a good idea to introduce them as "robots". He was a bit more receptive when I told him they were more like golems though.

[Rubik]

Skip the last level in constructor and the Practiced Manifester feat. Get Linked Power instead, and you can get that last level in constructor with a feat (that's much more useful, and useful with more powers). And it basically lets you do the personal construct ACF by expending your focus and +1 pp, so you save a feat there, as well.

Also, there's a feat in Cityscape that can get you into your first level of constructor one level early via +1 skill rank in Craft. Retrain it (and its prereq) after you have a level in constructor (and an additional skill rank) to retain your qualification.

I'd consider going dragonborn on your warforged, and using actual armor rather than using a feat for a warforged body. Unless you're in an incredibly low-wealth game (and don't want to use Inertial Armor), I wouldn't bother straightjacketing yourself into one type of armor and wasting a feat to do it. Plus, having +2 Con and wings or a breath weapon (along with the Gemstone Breath power) is rather sexy, I must say.

[edit 2] Also, Linked Power will cut Psionic Identify down to 1 round, assuming you have a nice power to go along with it. [/edit 2]

[Rejusu]

Skip the last level in constructor and the Practiced Manifester feat. Get Linked Power instead, and you can get that last level in constructor with a feat (that's much more useful, and useful with more powers). And it basically lets you do the personal construct ACF by expending your focus and +1 pp, so you save a feat there, as well.

Also, there's a feat in Cityscape that can get you into your first level of constructor one level early via +1 skill rank in Craft. Retrain it (and its prereq) after you have a level in constructor (and an additional skill rank) to retain your qualification.

I'd consider going dragonborn on your warforged, and using actual armor rather than using a feat for a warforged body. Unless you're in an incredibly low-wealth game (and don't want to use Inertial Armor), I wouldn't bother straightjacketing yourself into one type of armor and wasting a feat to do it. Plus, having +2 Con and wings or a breath weapon (along with the Gemstone Breath power) is rather sexy, I must say.

[edit 2] Also, Linked Power will cut Psionic Identify down to 1 round, assuming you have a nice power to go along with it. [/edit 2]

Not sure if I could get that kind of early entry cheese past my DM, plus I'm not in that much of a rush to jump into Constructor anyway. The extra level of Shaper means more PP and two more powers known. Plus there's RP related prerequisites on those feats, which my DM could just shoot down.

While I'm normally of the mind to choose optimisation over fluff, I'm just not in love with the idea of a Dragonborn Warforged. While the idea of a robo-dragon is cool it's also kind of ridiculous. Frankly though the free wings are very very tempting.

Plus I'm playing a Psion, so it's not like I have armour proficiency anyway. So using actual armour would put me at a disadvantage. Unless I used a feat or class level to become proficient. In which case I wouldn't be getting much more benefit than just going for the body feat in the first place. Especially since Adamantine body would put me well ahead of the curve for a few levels in terms of level. After all it's roughly equivilent to Adamantine full-plate (although a bit worse as it's 2 DR rather than 3) and that's what? 16,000GP roughly? Starting at 5th level WBL is only 9,000.

Although I hope to stay back from combat at any rate and simply not get hit. Thus making the need for a high AC less necessary, although still appreciated of course.

EDIT Plus if push comes to shove I can just get my body enchanted.

EDIT 2 I'm not sure I want to (ab)use Linked Power. Some of its applications can be a bit too good. Although saying that it has it's downsides over going the Personal construct route (lets face it, the capstone of constructor just aint worth it), primarily that in terms of using it for Astral Construct:

1) Your construct arrives the next round. This is actually worse than simply using the full round action it'd take to manifest since they can act immediately once they appear. Yes it means you can do other stuff during the first and second round, but it means you can't get a construct up and running as soon as possible. One round can make a difference.

2) Extra PP cost. The downside here is twofold. One it potentially loses your construct a level as you can't put more PP into a power than your manifester level. For example a 5th level Psion could manifest a 3rd level construct as a swift action using Personal Construct, using Linked Power though would drop that to a 2nd level Construct arriving a turn later. Plus it's extra PP. With a lost ML and lost PP from going into Constructor it makes this option less attractive.

3) You say it's only +1 PP. But that means you'd have to find a 1PP power that's always worth using. Otherwise all you're really doing is wasting time manifesting a power you don't really need and spending PP you could save. Failing that it means spending more PP on the initial power and consequently lowering the PP you can spend on the linked power.

4) Powers that benefit from massive reductions in manifestation time aren't that common. Yes Psionics can break the action economy into little pieces if they wish. But it's also a really good way to burn through all your power points. Most of the time you'll be fine manifesting one power per round, if that. Yes, Psionic Identify would definitely benefit from being linked. At the same time though an Artificers monocle will do the same job for 1,500GP, cost less PP and free up a power slot.