Why would you ever go psychic assassin?

[Shafee]

I've been looking up assassin type classes and The Mind's Eye Psychic Rogue and Psychic Assassin caught my eye. At first, the Assassin seemed like a good prc to jump into. Then I looked at the abilities the class gets, and it's not really that great when comparing to just staying with psy rogue. Hide in plain sight is great, but other than that there's nothing really worth noting to make the switch from a psychic rogue to an assassin. Am I missing something here, or did they just not really make the assassin unique enough? It clearly seems better than the old DMG assassin prc, but doesn't seem worth losing 10 levels of, for example, psychic rogue.

On a related note: I've been trying to find a class or multi-class way to create the champion Talon from League of Legends. Currently I'm unsure if I will be able to use Tome of Battle, so swordsage may be out. Psychic abilities seemed to fit him better than arcane spell casting, but really I'm not too sure how'd he work class-wise. Teleporting abilities, brief invisibility/stealth, crazy blade attacks/cone attack, and a weapon that looks a lot like a non-concealable quick razor attached to his forearm the size of a sword.

[Jeff the Green]

It's not a PrC for a psychic rogue; it's one for a psion/rogue.

[Cog]

It's not a PrC for a psychic rogue; it's one for a psion/rogue.

It's even better for Ardents than for Psions. Multiclassed Ardents have a limited range of powers they can select on levelup, but Psychic Assassin adds a bunch.

[Psyren]

It's not a PrC for a psychic rogue; it's one for a psion/rogue.

^ That (or Ardent as Cog suggested.) Psychic Rogues even get the "mind cripple" ability on their own already, there's no real reason for them to take PA. (Death Attack is a very meh ability for PCs.)

Making Talon is easy - take crystal-based powers (Swarm of Crystals is perfect for Rake) and teleportation powers like Dimension Hop/Slide/Door.

[Shafee]

^ That (or Ardent as Cog suggested.) Psychic Rogues even get the "mind cripple" ability on their own already, there's no real reason for them to take PA. (Death Attack is a very meh ability for PCs.)

Making Talon is easy - take crystal-based powers (Swarm of Crystals is perfect for Rake) and teleportation powers like Dimension Hop/Slide/Door.

Swarm of Crystals is a pretty good start! So you'd agree that he's a good candidate for a psionic class? Given that swarm of crystals is a psion/wilder power, he could be a psion/psychic assassin. Not having any of the skill requirements for assassin kind of hurts, though. Maybe a first level dip into rogue or ranger? It could be as simple as psion 5/psychic assassin 10 and finishing out psion. Egoist or Telepath seems useful. I think the psy assassin would be better with the psion since, as pointed out, increases the manifester level of the psion while still getting some assassin abilties.

[Jeff the Green]

Not having any of the skill requirements for assassin kind of hurts, though. Maybe a first level dip into rogue or ranger?

I'd say Factotum (Intelligence to various things a couple times per encounter) or Psychic Rogue or Lurk (a couple extra power points and an extra power known). The only thing Rogue gets you better than those is skill points, and you're Intelligence-focused to begin with.

[Phelix-Mu]

If swordsage is out, consider a dip of monk 2 to pick up Invisible Fist ACF, a very solid option for go-to stealth. Combine this with the item sparring dummy of the grandmaster from Arms and Equipment Guide, which will get you a 10-foot step instead of a 5-foot step, and there's your "teleportation" (just refluff free action 10' move as very short-range teleporting, cept no moving through solid objects and such :smallamused: ).

[Snowbluff]

^ That (or Ardent as Cog suggested.) Psychic Rogues even get the "mind cripple" ability on their own already, there's no real reason for them to take PA. (Death Attack is a very meh ability for PCs.)


As far as a psionic death attack dude, you're much better off with an Marrulurk Ardent.

Talon can bamf fight... so you'll want to go into Shadow Marauder or Shadow Lord for Shadow Pounce. If you're keen on focusing psionic abilities, you can activate Shadow Pounce with any [Teleportation] effect, not just spells.

For the silence ability, Whisper Gnomes as a specific feat call Silencing Strike for applying their Silence SLA (Races of Stone). Alternatively, you may use the Throat Punch feat (Complete Scoundrel).

For an Arcane version, I would suggest Daggerspell Mage. Maybe ask your DM for a Psionic Adaptation.

[Phelix-Mu]

As far as a psionic death attack dude, you're much better off with an Marrulurk Ardent.

Heheh. Marrulurks. Seriously, Sandstorm and Frostburn have such a strange mix of useful environmental rules, meh prcs (with a few noteworthy exceptions), and totally off-the-hook insanity like marrulurks or the spell ice assassin. Totally both in my list of Top 5 Splats.:smallsmile:

[Shafee]

As far as a psionic death attack dude, you're much better off with an Marrulurk Ardent.

Talon can bamf fight... so you'll want to go into Shadow Marauder or Shadow Lord for Shadow Pounce. If you're keen on focusing psionic abilities, you can activate Shadow Pounce with any [Teleportation] effect, not just spells.

For the silence ability, Whisper Gnomes as a specific feat call Silencing Strike for applying their Silence SLA (Races of Stone). Alternatively, you may use the Throat Punch feat (Complete Scoundrel).

For an Arcane version, I would suggest Daggerspell Mage. Maybe ask your DM for a Psionic Adaptation.

Okay--Shadow Lord is crazy. It has some hefty requirements, though. In keeping with the current class layout and flavor, I think he could go psychic rogue 1 / psion 5 / psychic assassin 5 (shadow jump) / shadow lord 4 / psychic assassin 5. That is, unless manifester levels stack between classes. If psychic rogue and psion stack, I'd only need 4 in psion to qualify for psychic assassin.

This would give +12 BAB, +5d6 sneak attacks, shadow pounce, and 5th level psion powers. Although this seems INCREDIBLY cool, is it worth it to make the jump for shadow pounce in this way, or stay psion/psychic assassin and have 7th level powers? I'm guessing since most of the powers that will be used are for teleporting, it would be worth it to make all those full attack options.

[Snowbluff]

Shadow Marauder might have easier prereqs, depending on what you are doing.

You can take Practiced Manifester to improved your ML. If you go ardent, you can get better powers through Practiced Manifester.

Shadow Pounce is absurdly good. If you an find a way to hit yourself with a teleportation ability while doing this, you can do recursive shadow pounces. The example I recently discovered is Duskblade13/ShadowMarauder5. What you would do is full channel D Hop, and hit yourself at the end of the sequence to trigger another teleport to channel more D Hop...

EDIT: Psychic Assassin's Shadow Jump mimics D Door, which means it ends your turn. You might want to pick up D Hop (the psionic one, not the spell one), which is a swift action.

[Eldest]

Gotta ask why do you want psychic assassin? Is it because it has assassin in the name? Talon doesn't do the one attack death attack. He pops in, does a massive amount of damage, and then vanishes as best he can. In my opinion, that would be better served with a psychic rogue with expanded power(swarm of crystals) and dimension slide. Both of those powers come online at 9th level, at which point you can use dimension slide at the augmented cost to teleport as a move action. Invisibility can be hiding really, really well, since psionics actually does illusions very poorly, or if you really want it to be magic look at cloud mind.

[Shafee]

Gotta ask why do you want psychic assassin? Is it because it has assassin in the name? Talon doesn't do the one attack death attack. He pops in, does a massive amount of damage, and then vanishes as best he can. In my opinion, that would be better served with a psychic rogue with expanded power(swarm of crystals) and dimension slide. Both of those powers come online at 9th level, at which point you can use dimension slide at the augmented cost to teleport as a move action. Invisibility can be hiding really, really well, since psionics actually does illusions very poorly, or if you really want it to be magic look at cloud mind.

Oh, I'm not dead set on the psychic assassin. I just thought that it would be useful for increasing manifester levels. My knowledge of psionics and psionic feats isn't up to speed, so I don't know my way around to best match up the classes. You're right about the death attack, and I don't really care for it anyway--it seems like an all or nothing ability that you have to build around.

By expanded power do you mean expanded knowledge? That's a pretty good idea for picking up powers rather than dipping into classes for them. Overall, I'd like to be able to grab a power/spell that mimics his rake ability, and have multiple ways to activate shadow pounce. I don't know of anything that can mimic his ultimate ability, but shadow pounce is probably good enough :)

So far, swarm of crystals seems like a good choice for rake, and having both dimension slide and dimension hop would be good to have for shadow pounce. Dimension slide can be powered up to be used as a move action, and dimension hop is a swift action on it's own.

So, by 13th lvl a psychic rogue on it's own can get dimension door and slide. Where can I get dimension hop?

As for invisibility, yeah it would be nice to have a swift invisibility, but involves some sacrifice. The vanilla assassin can pick it up at third level.

[Psyren]

So, by 13th lvl a psychic rogue on it's own can get dimension door and slide. Where can I get dimension hop?

Dimension Hop is a 1st-level power from Complete Psionic. It lets you teleport 10 feet as a swift action, augmentable to further distances. I advise you get it via Hidden Talent from the XPH.

They can actually get Dimension Slide at 9th-level as that is a 3rd-level power.



As for invisibility, yeah it would be nice to have a swift invisibility, but involves some sacrifice. The vanilla assassin can pick it up at third level.

You can always use (Greater) Concealing Amorpha and regular stealth. Unlike Blur/Displacement these give you true concealment you can hide behind.

[Shafee]

I just wanna say thanks for all the suggestions, guys. I ended up with Psychic Rogue 11/ Shadow Lord 4.

To name a few things other than all the pre reqs:

Hidden talent(Dimension Hop)
Expanded Knowledge (Swarm of Crystals)
Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Bladed Gauntlet)

Swarm of Crystals acts as his Rake skill.
He has shadow jump, dimension hop, dimension slide, shadow cloak,(teleport 3/day if hit) and an anklet of translocation for teleports and multiple ways to gain "invisibility," including invisibility, shadow blur, and concealing amorpha.

I didn't really deck him out with the full amount of gold and stuff yet. Currently he has a +3 bladed gauntlet with keen and assassination, giving him 5d6 sneak attacks, 1d6 +2 16-20x2.

He has 3 attacks with his blade, 4 with haste, so I'm guessing he can dimension hop as a swift action, activate shadow pounce for 4 attacks, then dimension slide for 4 more attacks. Any sneak attack that hits drops their intelligence by 2.

I may have made some mistakes here...

Anyway, I later took a look at the ninja class in pathfinder and was shocked at how many abilities are in line with Talon!