what are the Psion psi-crystal abilities and limitations?

[05chancew]

I am currently playing a lvl 5 psion (telepath), lvl3 uncarnate, and having lots of fun, seems like I never have enough powers, but you make do.
Whilst looking at my character, I had a look at some of the things my psi-crystal could do, its stats, and traits. I have looked around and seen some talk about feats, and when we talked my GM said no.
It has many uses, such as an extra pair of eyes, a good stealth tool, a cool looking staff, etc.
so this is more a thread about what can be done, ie. could you make it open a door whilst on a stealth mission, or could I load a timehop into it, at "touch" range, which it could only hit if it touched something whilst it released it.
I appreciate any advice anyone can give me here, and would love to know how others used there crystals.

[Psyren]

3.5 or Pathfinder?

The main uses for a psicrystal are:

- Extra Focus (letting you do things like stack metapsionics or activate two psionic feats at once.)
- Spying/stealth (works better in 3.5 due to gaining feats)
- Skill bonuses for its master
- Damage sponge with Vigor/Share Pain.
- Feat battery (3.5 only) via Feat Leech

You can also use it as a walkie-talkie with the party scout/sneak (put it in his pocket, he can whisper to it and it will relay the messages to you)

As far as it opening doors or manipulating things, it can't (it has no hands) but what you can do is share certain powers with it (elg. Metamorphosis, which changes its shape) or, at higher levels, manifest powers like Far Hand or Telekinetic Force through it.

[Rubik]

Psicrystals don't eat, sleep, or breathe, so they are useful for night watch and recon (to an extent, with the limitations of the Sighted ability).

They're great if you equip them with a psychoactive skin of proteus -- it turns them into an all-purpose tool. If your DM won't let a non-Medium creature equip one, just use Metamorphosis on it beforehand. Even better, since the skin allows you to use Metamorphosis at will, YOU equip it, share the power with your psicrystal to turn it human (or something), and then give the psychoactive skin to it.

They also work well as universal translators. Their telepathic speech ability is neither language-dependent nor mind-affecting, and it's an entirely separate ability from their ability to speak one language of the master's choice (and understand all the languages he does), so the psicrystal can speak telepathically to other creatures and relay the message to you, while doing the same in the other direction.

Share both Vigor and Share Pain with it. You can keep the psicrystal in your pocket to protect it, split half of the damage you take with it (which is reduced by the psicrystal's hardness), which then is eaten by the temp hp from Vigor. It's like getting 10 temp hp per power point (minus 5 pp for the cost of Share Pain).

[05chancew]

Forgot to say, I am in pathfinder, sorry.

love some of those ideas, things like the sponging sound really useful.
Just quickly, for the Proteus skin concept, would it take a while to activate, or could it just be taken of by me and given straight to it?

Also, for some reason my GM thinks it would sleep when I do, whereas you mention it being a night watch. Could you elaborate on your point please?

[Rubik]

Forgot to say, I am in pathfinder, sorry.Then I'm not sure how many of these ideas are usable. I stopped paying attention to Pathfinder when I learned what a ****-up it was. You'll want to check all of this information against the PF rules for accuracy.


love some of those ideas, things like the sponging sound really useful.

Just quickly, for the Proteus skin concept, would it take a while to activate, or could it just be taken of by me and given straight to it?If the rules are anything like the 3.5 rules for items and for the skin specifically, the proteus skin allows you to use Metamorphosis at will, so activate it and share it with your psicrystal. Since 3.5's version of Metamorphosis lasts 1 minute per level, and the ML for the item is 7, you should get a humanified psicrystal for 7 minutes, during which you can strip the skin and hand it over to your psicrystal.


Also, for some reason my GM thinks it would sleep when I do, whereas you mention it being a night watch. Could you elaborate on your point please?Constructs do not need to eat, sleep, or breathe, and are immune to fatigue. Nothing in the 3.5 psicrystal's description overrides this -- and, in fact, psicrystals likely cannot sleep at all, even should they want to.

[Psyren]

Then I'm not sure how many of these ideas are usable.

If you mean the ones in your post, all of them.



Also, for some reason my GM thinks it would sleep when I do, whereas you mention it being a night watch. Could you elaborate on your point please?

Constructs do not eat, breathe or sleep in both 3.5 and PF.