DSP SRD rundown 1: Introducing.....the halo knight!

[classy one]

Foreword:
I have always wanted to do a review of the DSP SRD, like I did for Hyperconscious but realized that it was really big. So I'm breaking it down into digestible bits. I'm hoping to let other psionic lovers out there know that there are other resources out there, and hopefully this will help broaden your options. Enjoy!


Halo knight (http://dsp-d20-srd.wikidot.com/halo-knight)
A warrior that draws power from archetypes of the mind. Wielding a weapon empowered by psychic might and carrying a bright banner of his personal beliefs his power inspires others around him to greater heights.
http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/microsoft2012/halo/knight610.jpg
Basic chassis: full BAB, good fort and will saves, 4 skill/lvl, gains PP faster than a psywar but slower than a psion/wilder, proficient with all weapons and armor sans tower shields.

Since this class has a cool name, how does it stack up? Well the base chassis is decent, full BAB is unheard for a psionic base class, decent PP gain (CHR based), and two good save. Skills that are lacking are balance and spot but 4/lvl is okay for a front line fighter.

Class features:

Avatar: When psionically focused, the halo knight gains bonuses depending on what aspect of thought they pick. This includes bonuses on saves, attack, damage, skills etc. It improves by one step every 5 levels and you can select another avatar at level 7 and 17. The better ones are the eternal (fast healing), weapon master (attack rolls), reaver (damage), and untouchable (saves).

Idealized weapon: closely related to a mind blade or the soulbound weapon (psywar ACF). At every even level your weapon can get buffed by one point. Any weapon of the same type you pick up will automatically have the bonuses and abilities of the last weapon. Unlike mind blade, there is no exhaustive list as to what abilities you want to put on there.

Anima flare: Gained at level 3. If you expend your focus you can grant your teammates the avatar bonus instead. The range starts at 10' and increases by 10' every 3 levels (max 60'). It only lasts for one round but you can extend it's duration by one round by spending PP (can't exceed you ML). For each PP you spend, the duration lasts one round longer. This flare also grants illumination.

Bonus feats: from a restricted list: Avatar Purge, Favored Avatar, Ghost Attack, Psicrystal Weapon, Psionic Body, Psionic Meditation, Psionic Talent, Speed of Thought, Soulbound Weapon, Up the Walls, Weapon Focus, Wild Talent Granted at levels 4, 11, 18. Favored avatar might be the best one since it improved your selected avatar by one step.

Avatar surge: 9th level ability and useable once per day, by making a concentration check DC 30, the Halo knight can gain +6 to STR or DEX. Like anima flare, it lasts one round but can be extended by spending PP. You get more uses of this at levels 14 and 19.

Share avatar: Granted at lvl 11, by using a move action to give a teammate within range the avatar class feature. Only lasts for one round but can be extended and does not use up focus (unlike anima flare)

PrC options:

Idealized protector (http://dsp-d20-srd.wikidot.com/idealized-protector): improves on the Idealized weapon and anima flare. When using the anima flare feature, your allies also gain the bonuses of your idealized weapon. It also improves defensive and leadership scores.

Idealist (http://dsp-d20-srd.wikidot.com/idealist): gives more options for avatar, but mainly for halo knight dip and other psionic classes main. The better ones are the psywar avatar (use psionic weapon/shot/fist for free 1/day), and the enlightened (+1 to one mental stats). It's capstone allows you to always enjoy the bonuses to your avatar even when you are not focused.
Edit: just realized that the wilder avatar can boost your ML by +5. That's pretty amazing IMO. Also the psion can give you a ton of PP (adding +2-+10 on your primary manifesting stat).

Verdict: Flavor wise this seems like a Divine Mind and soulknife rolled into one, but with much better front line capabilities. Anima flare is a decent team buffer and has a better range than psionic aura. The halo knight also has access to better weapons, and has full BAB which make it more suited for front line action.

However, I would have to say that Divine Mind may still be better. That's a rather bold statement considering Divine Mind is is a rather horrible class. The main reason is that Halo knights can't manifest powers. At all. The PP is only there to extend the duration of class features and serves no other purpose. It's a shame too since this class had great flavor and a lot of potential but ultimately fell short due to being deprived of basic manifesting. Usually Dreamscarred press delivers in both flavor and mechanics but this was not one of them.

Let me know what your impressions are of this class. Were you disappointed? Let me know!

[WhatBigTeeth]

However, I would have to say that Divine Mind may still be better.
...Yeah. After seeing both in play, I wish I could disagree.

But Idealist can be very nice for a gish. Especially with the wilder avatar.

[classy one]

...Yeah. After seeing both in play, I wish I could disagree.

But Idealist can be very nice for a gish. Especially with the wilder avatar.


Wow someone who has played the signs mind before!!! I feel like I just saw a unicorn.
Just a quick comparision:
Divine Mind:
area buffs are always on but has slightly less range
buffs apply for both player and teammates
Buff doesn't require focus
weapons are WBL making idealized weapon less attractive
Has more PP and can use it for to manifest powers

Halo knight:
Avatar can only apply for self or others not both.
Requires player to be focused
Can't manifest powers
Buffs require PP to maintain duration and duration is capped at Class level.
Idealized weapon isn't as versitile as mind blade or just buying the weapon.


If Halo Knight could just manifest powers it would be even or ahead of divine mind in terms of damage dealing but still behind on support. I honestly can't believe this class is just so bad.

I might touch on the PrC more in further updates, but the idealist seems okay for players who dip into Halo Knight since it does advance avatar and has good ML progression. It is a PrC with 9/10 ML progression and 9/10 avatar progression. If you select wilder avatar all 5 times you can boost ML by 5 while the avatar is active. That pretty good for only dropping 2 ML and still have access to 9th level powers.

[WhatBigTeeth]

One thing about the HK's lack of powers is that it does get DSP's Wild Talent as a bonus feat, which is more like Hidden Talent than WotC's WT. So the one I played did wind up with a Linked Power + Dimension Hop + Expansion combo, but we're still talking about a very slow advancement, and at the cost of feat slots that the build really wanted.

The part that made it frustrating was that a Bard 4/Warblade 2/Kensai X could have gotten bigger number buffs which would have stacked with knowledge devotion, could have have power surged better and more often and could have caught up with its weapon enhancement rate pretty quickly, on top of maneuvers and alter self.

On the flip side, I haven't seen one play through levels 1-6, and in that range, +2 attack and an automatic +2 equivalent weapon would be pretty significant. I'd also bet that in a group heavily loaded with melee fighters, a halo knight that really invested in its halos could be decent (between focused halo and halo purge, its attack and damage bonuses could be in the same range as a specializing IC bard at that range). It's more when the divine mind starts getting some actual powers known and starts spamming its astral construct thing that the HK looks bad in comparison.

[3WhiteFox3]

I respectfully disagree with the assertion that the Halo Knight is weaker than the Divine Mind. The DM is quite possibly my least favorite class in the entire game, I could devote an entire thread to why I despise them so. And I'll readily admit that I am biased about anything being worse than it.

So to remain as objective as possible, I would like to first do a point by point analysis of the HK's abilities and perhaps later compare them to other tier 4/5 classes to see what kind of power level they rest at.

Chassis -
*d8 Hit Dice
*Full BaB
*Good Fort + Ref saves
*4+Int skill points
*A solid skill List
*All martial weapons, armor and shield (not tower shields) proficiencies

They have a phenomenal chassis, essentially a Cleric with better BaB, proficiencies and skill points with a slightly weaker skill list. Full BaB alone makes it's chassis far better than the Divine Mind's.

Class Features -

*Psionics: Good power point pool, however, cannot manifest powers barring Wild Talent. Lacks a manifester level, but fuels many of his class features off of power points so not a total loss.

*Avatar: Solid, though it's limitation of having to maintain Psionic Focus hurts and it scales slowly. However, by level 20 you will have 3 Avatars (each new Avatar opens up better options at that level) that can be operational at the same time which is nothing to sneeze at.

I'm also surprised that you didn't mention the awesome Martyr Avatar that gives you the DR of a barbarian at 20th, but gets it at the very important first level. Not to mention that your Tertiary Avatar can get you Power Resistance (works against spells too) though admittedly, it probably comes in too late (it's still better than any other option at that point though).

*Idealized weapon: This is way better than buying a weapon and better than the mind blade. A HK with an Idealized Weapon gets a better weapon than the equivalent character could buy at WBL at every level up to 18th. Even then, the HK is very close. Ex: The HK gets a +2 weapon at level 4, or 8,000 gp. WBL at that level is 5,400 gp. The HK only has to pay 300 xp for this as well, and thanks to 'xp is a river' he should be at the same level as everyone else soon.

If he were to just buy the weapon and it were lost or destroyed (Disjunction anyone?) then he would lose the invested gold. A HK can just pay a minor xp cost and pick up a new weapon. Sure it takes a week, but it sure beats losing it completely.

Also, it's way better than a mind blade. Mind blades only go up to +5 total bonus with a limited pool of abilities. Idealized Weapons go up to a +10 total bonus (the best you can buy) and can have any special abilities that he desires. (He gets of ML of 10 + class level for the purposes of creating magic weapons. At level 11, he has a effective ML of 21 for adding special abilities, opening up Epic Special Abilities to him.) Sure he has to pay xp, and it isn't quite as easy to replace, but it's vastly more effective.

*Share Avatar: is a very strong and versatile ability. Give a dying ally an Eternal Avatar to immediately stabilize him, give him some free THP to keep him alive for a round or two, give him a damage buff, etc... The best part is that you get to keep the Avatar, it costs only a move action to do and has no limitations on uses per day; further if you fail the concentration check, you only lose your move action.

Other Abilities -

These are nice, but not really necessary. Mostly just nifty things to do. You don't have to use Anima flare, but when your party badly needs that DR or THP or whatever, it's nice to have on standby.

The bonus feats are from a very restricted list, but you probably have enough useful ones to fill up the slots.

Note: There is a potentially-cheesy interpretation of Idealized weapon that is probably RAW-bending at best. Nothing stops you from enhancing an already magical weapon with special abilities. The enhancement bonus wouldn't stack, but theoretically if you chose different special abilities, you would get both your Idealized Weapon abilities AND the weapons magical abilities. You may not be able to go past a +10 total bonus, though that probably depends on the GM's interpretation. It still allows you to have more special abilities than you are probably supposed to on your weapon.

In conclusion, I don't think that the class is the next Warblade or anything. But, I definitely feel that it could definitely compare favorably against most Tier 4 classes. That makes it far better than the Monk, Fighter, Divine Mind and Soulknife. Note: it can actually contribute meaningfully to a fight, unlike the above classes.

Anyway, I'm open to critiques and disagreement.

P.S. I'm not trying to step on the OP's toes, and I hope that he can forgive me for posting this. It ended up being far larger than I intended, almost a review on it's own, but it's how I feel about the class as a whole. I just hope it's useful for those looking at the class.

[WhatBigTeeth]

I respectfully disagree with the assertion that the Halo Knight is weaker than the Divine Mind. The DM is quite possibly my least favorite class in the entire game, I could devote an entire thread to why I despise them so. And I'll readily admit that I am biased about anything being worse than it.

So to remain as objective as possible, I would like to first do a point by point analysis of the HK's abilities and perhaps later compare them to other tier 4/5 classes to see what kind of power level they rest at.
...
That makes it far better than the Monk, Fighter, Divine Mind and Soulknife. Note: it can actually contribute meaningfully to a fight, unlike the above classes.

Anyway, I'm open to critiques and disagreement.
I won't disagree with the Soulknife, or the Monk except certain circumstances. But the issue is that all the Halo Knight brings to the field are numbers, and many of them don't stack with common bonuses (most notably Knowledge Devotion).

For all the hate the Divine Mind gets, once you start edging into the mid- and high-level game, it can actually pack some powerful and versatile abilities like Time Hop, Astral Construct, Hustle, teleports, enchantments and Metamorphosis, which mean that it can contribute to the sorts of fights that fighters, monks, barbarians and halo knights have trouble with (where flight, visibility and battlefield control come into play), and that outside combats, it actually has some resources to draw on beside its physical attributes and equipment.

At low levels, certainly the DM loses out, but as just about every "Fixing the Fighter" thread repeats, numbers are just about the least important thing in determining a character's effectiveness as it approaches the high-level game, and those numbers are all the halo knight has.

[3WhiteFox3]

I won't disagree with the Soulknife, or the Monk except certain circumstances. But the issue is that all the Halo Knight brings to the field are numbers, and many of them don't stack with common bonuses (most notably Knowledge Devotion).

For all the hate the Divine Mind gets, once you start edging into the mid- and high-level game, it can actually pack some powerful and versatile abilities like Time Hop, Astral Construct, Hustle, teleports, enchantments and Metamorphosis, which mean that it can contribute to the sorts of fights that fighters, monks, barbarians and halo knights have trouble with (where flight, visibility and battlefield control come into play), and that outside combats, it actually has some resources to draw on beside its physical attributes and equipment.

At low levels, certainly the DM loses out, but as just about every "Fixing the Fighter" thread repeats, numbers are just about the least important thing in determining a character's effectiveness as it approaches the high-level game, and those numbers are all the halo knight has.

I'll be the first to admit that my hatred of the DM isn't entirely rational, nor is it only because of the power of the class. However, even at level 20, they have half the PPs the PsyWar has, (the PsyWar's lack of PP is commonly considered it's greatest weakness.) So while they can do some nice things, they have to be very careful about how much they manifest.

Also, I happen to slightly disagree with the popular assertion that numbers are irrelevant. Numbers are only irrelevant past tier 4; after all, the main strengths of the Barbarian, Scout and Rogue are primarily in the numbers. I consider tiers 3 and 4 to be the baseline for balance in D&D. The thing is, most people are so enamored with tier 3, that they forget that tier 4 is acceptable in the balance curve.

In fact, weapon special abilities can add more than numbers. Some weapon abilities are quite nasty. Yes, I realize that the best thing that the HK does is replicated by WBL; however, the HK does it better than WBL. This is enough to make him a class, that I feel is going to be more effective than a DM at most levels.

EDIT: After all if we balanced classes by their last 1-3 levels, then the Healer and Truenamer are two of the better classes in the game. I would argure that the same basic principle can be extrapolated to the DM, showing that he really isn't useful for the majority of the time. After all, most campaigns start at 1st level and probably won't make it much farther than that. But, yeah, if your game starts at level 15, then the DM might be more effective than the HK.

[rollforeigninit]

Sadly I have to agree that the HK is not really something I'd play under normal circumstances. HOWEVER, IF i got quite good stat rolls, I'd be tempted to play one as a Wilder//HK gestalt combo. Not too many powers but the powers ya have could go BOOM! Nice hearty chassis for the wilder to use.

[classy one]

I respectfully disagree with the assertion that the Halo Knight is weaker than the Divine Mind. The DM is quite possibly my least favorite class in the entire game, I could devote an entire thread to why I despise them so. And I'll readily admit that I am biased about anything being worse than it.
I encourage debate as it will increase understanding. I hate the Divine mind as well, which is why it gave me no pleasure to say that the Halo knight was weaker.



*Avatar: Solid, though it's limitation of having to maintain Psionic Focus hurts and it scales slowly. However, by level 20 you will have 3 Avatars (each new Avatar opens up better options at that level) that can be operational at the same time which is nothing to sneeze at.

I'm also surprised that you didn't mention the awesome Martyr Avatar that gives you the DR of a barbarian at 20th, but gets it at the very important first level. Not to mention that your Tertiary Avatar can get you Power Resistance (works against spells too) though admittedly, it probably comes in too late (it's still better than any other option at that point though).
Needing to focused is a disadvantage but the real reason psychic aura is better than anima flare is that psychic aura is always on and affects everyone in range, while anima flare only affects other. Share avatar only partially fixs this problem while the Idealist's capstone bypasses it. Still you need to get to level 11 or 15 to do what a DM can do at level 1.



*Idealized weapon: This is way better than buying a weapon and better than the mind blade. A HK with an Idealized Weapon gets a better weapon than the equivalent character could buy at WBL at every level up to 18th. Even then, the HK is very close. Ex: The HK gets a +2 weapon at level 4, or 8,000 gp. WBL at that level is 5,400 gp. The HK only has to pay 300 xp for this as well, and thanks to 'xp is a river' he should be at the same level as everyone else soon.

If he were to just buy the weapon and it were lost or destroyed (Disjunction anyone?) then he would lose the invested gold. A HK can just pay a minor xp cost and pick up a new weapon. Sure it takes a week, but it sure beats losing it completely.[quote]
From what I understood, Idealized weapon's abilities cannot be changed. Once you pick it, it is fixed unless you spend XP and time to redo it. Why I said a mind blade is better is because it can be changed on the fly (especially if you take the change mind blade feat) and also easily replaceable. And let's not forget the psywar soulbound weapon ACF.
[quote]
Also, it's way better than a mind blade. Mind blades only go up to +5 total bonus with a limited pool of abilities. Idealized Weapons go up to a +10 total bonus (the best you can buy) and can have any special abilities that he desires. (He gets of ML of 10 + class level for the purposes of creating magic weapons. At level 11, he has a effective ML of 21 for adding special abilities, opening up Epic Special Abilities to him.) Sure he has to pay xp, and it isn't quite as easy to replace, but it's vastly more effective.
If you use the DSP variant soulblade (along with all the mind blade feats) then the mind blade is better since it can also go up to +10 for special abilities. I'm not sure if you can take +6 for epic weapon..... but then again I don't see a cap listed. Most magical weapons require you to have at least +1 before you apply special abilities and level 21 for +6 and above. Could be worth looking into though.



*Share Avatar: is a very strong and versatile ability. Give a dying ally an Eternal Avatar to immediately stabilize him, give him some free THP to keep him alive for a round or two, give him a damage buff, etc... The best part is that you get to keep the Avatar, it costs only a move action to do and has no limitations on uses per day; further if you fail the concentration check, you only lose your move action.
This ability comes a bit too late, and the DM's aura can do this but better as it affects all within range and not just another person. It also doesn't cost PP. Just the attack aura is a reaver and weapon master avatar rolled into one. The guardian mantle aura also gives DR 5/- by level 20, just like the martyr avatar, except that it's always on, doesn't need PP, applies to all in range. Only thing anima flare has on psychic aura is range.




P.S. I'm not trying to step on the OP's toes, and I hope that he can forgive me for posting this. It ended up being far larger than I intended, almost a review on it's own, but it's how I feel about the class as a whole. I just hope it's useful for those looking at the class.
I don't mind at all. I hated saying HK was weaker than DM but that is just how powerful casting/manifesting is IMO. It's no secret that all the high tier classes are full caster, or why the factotum or psyrogue is better than the mundane rogue.

[classy one]

Sadly I have to agree that the HK is not really something I'd play under normal circumstances. HOWEVER, IF i got quite good stat rolls, I'd be tempted to play one as a Wilder//HK gestalt combo. Not too many powers but the powers ya have could go BOOM! Nice hearty chassis for the wilder to use.

Like BigTeeth said, a wilder 9/halo knight 1/Idealist 10 is a very good gish who can manifest at well beyond their ML thanks to the +5ML granted by the wilder avatar and the +3 granted by the wild surge.

[WhatBigTeeth]

I'm basing my HK bashing on a level 8-14ish campaign where we started with a Divine Mind in the party who was a pretty reasonable defensive/control character with some reasonable noncombat tricks up his sleeve. Most of our characters died at some point (except a Rogue/Trapsmith who just spent half our fights pretending to have died), and I tried to replace/compare the DM with a Halo Knight. HK did have some kind of cool tricks with Expansion+Presence of the Master+Imperious Command and Expansion+the usual power attack combos, but as far as what he did in combat, it was almost exactly what a fighter did. Maybe what a good fighter did, but the same kinds of things with the same limitations. It flirted with obsolescence often and just generally got old fast.

But what worked well in a later game for the same role as the DM or HK was a Halo Knight 1/Ardent 4/Idealist. If the build had worked some Ghostbreaker in, it would have basically outdone the Divine Mind in every regard (same power list and mantles with way faster progression, better base attack, better turning -- the major exception would be the Divine Mind's astral construct PLA thing). Idealist with Favored Avatar (Wilder) builds up to a passive +5 ML, which is like the Wilder's surge at a similar level, but without the risk and with the possibility of combining with Overchannel/Transcend Limits... plus the option to double said bonus for a period every day. It's feat-intensive, temporary and it wouldn't all pay off at once, but when a character is able to scrounge +14 ML from feats and class features, that's pretty danged notable.

[3WhiteFox3]

I don't mind at all. I hated saying HK was weaker than DM but that is just how powerful casting/manifesting is IMO. It's no secret that all the high tier classes are full caster, or why the factotum or psyrogue is better than the mundane rogue.

Looking over the HK again, I can see some of your points. Especially when compared to the DSP soulknife (I was using the 3.5 version as my baseline). And I totally agree that the manifesting by itself makes the Divine Mind great at high levels. However, that's only the case once he actually gets it, as he can't do that until a quarter of the way through his class. I'd still like to see if I could make a cool Halo Knight though. I guess the reason I want it to be good, is because I like the idea so much, and it has a lot of potential for really cool flavor. (While I really dislike the idea behind the Divine Mind, since I don't think that Psionics needs a divine class.)

Also I haven't played with a HK yet, so I'll bow to WhatBigTeeth's superior experience in that regard.

[WhatBigTeeth]

I'm really interested to hear other people's takes on all the spirit shaman/erudite style manifesters. I've never played any of them, and have only even seen the society mind in a short-lived play-by-post back when it was just a piece of quirky homebrew that I didn't understand.

[classy one]

I'm really interested to hear other people's takes on all the spirit shaman/erudite style manifesters. I've never played any of them, and have only even seen the society mind in a short-lived play-by-post back when it was just a piece of quirky homebrew that I didn't understand.

My next probject is the society mind, then the marksman. Both of those are much better than the halo knight. The morphean isn't up on the srd and I'm pretty sure it will require the formbinder rules. Hopefully those evaluations will be as fruitful as this one.

[classy one]

Just wanted to point out another PrC designed with Halo Knight in mind. The anima bearer is a 5 lvl class that advances anima flare' range, duration and potency. It's really nothing to write home about since it sacrifices avatar and idealized weapon. The cap stone actually makes the bonuses anima flare greater than avatar.

[WhatBigTeeth]

My next probject is the society mind, then the marksman.
Marksman I'm also curious about. There's one in my game now, but we're low enough level that it's not looking much different from a ranger, and it's looking less and less like the campaign's going to take off.

[classy one]

Marksman I'm also curious about. There's one in my game now, but we're low enough level that it's not looking much different from a ranger, and it's looking less and less like the campaign's going to take off.

I could do Marksman first. It is certeinly more straight forward than society mind, which can be rather confusing.