Acquiring psi-like abilities

[eggynack]

I was journeying through various books on my search for wacky wild shape forms (What, you weren't expecting some relationship to druids on the basis of the thread title?), when I found the udoroot (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/monsters/udoroot.htm), a creature only really notable, at least in this case, for its ability to use two psi-like abilities a round. Now, I can't claim any sort of serious knowledge about psionics, but I was under some vague impression, possibly from a dream, that psi-like abilities were used by some class or another. My vague hope here is that this will feature in the optimization of druid based gestalts, but I'm flexible. If you've got anything nifty that could combo with this, that'd be neat, or if you have sufficient psionics knowledge that you can reasonably state that this is one half of a combo that will never be completed, that'd be alright too.

Edit: Urgh, just noticed that several other interesting qualities of the udoroot are a lack of any strength, dexterity, or even movement speed. That's... a thing of some kind. Still, the movement speed is really the only thing that needs bypassing, and you might be able to do that with something as simple as snowshoes.

[JusticeZero]

An udoroot is... a plant, that's dominated by its root system. just look at the picture. (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/xph_gallery/33555.jpg) That green plane the skull is sitting on is the dirt. It's a bit of a puzzle monster, since all you see is some flowers that blast you, and you chop the flowers down and wander off happily, only having mildly inconvenienced the actual plant for awhile.
But it's hardly the only thing with psi-like abilities. I'm a bit hazy on why that matters, since so far all i'm hearing is "Use Wildshape. Gain psi-like abilities. ???? Profit!" I suspect you need to be a bit more specific on things you intend to DO.

[eggynack]

An udoroot is... a plant, that's dominated by its root system. just look at the picture. (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/xph_gallery/33555.jpg) That green plane the skull is sitting on is the dirt. It's a bit of a puzzle monster, since all you see is some flowers that blast you, and you chop the flowers down and wander off happily, only having mildly inconvenienced the actual plant for awhile.
But it's hardly the only thing with psi-like abilities. I'm a bit hazy on why that matters, since so far all i'm hearing is "Use Wildshape. Gain psi-like abilities. ???? Profit!" I suspect you need to be a bit more specific on things you intend to DO.
I'm not really sure what the issue is here. If you use wild shape, and gain psi-like abilities, then you get to use two of them in a turn. That lies somewhere between nifty and absolutely insane depending on how good and varied the psi-like abilities are, especially when you consider the fact that the double manifesting ability is usable without any sort of feat or spell expenditure. As for the root thing, you're obviously going to have the roots, but it doesn't look like you necessarily need to be rooted down, so a boost in movement speed could potentially lead to an udoroot shambling about. This all seems pretty basic to me, except for that one psi-like ability acquiring step, which is annoying.

Edit: Huh. Originally wrote two psi-like abilities a day. That could have been confusing. It's two a round, just to be clear here.

[JusticeZero]

Well, it might be nifty, but the actual selection of abilities it has seem like they might be getting to be underwhelming for general purpose use by the time you can turn into a Huge plant. I can certainly see it being useful for certain uses, though. The false sensory input and suchlike can come in handy. I just suspect it would be situational, rather than something you'd want to wander around as all day.

[eggynack]

Well, it might be nifty, but the actual selection of abilities it has seem like they might be getting to be underwhelming for general purpose use by the time you can turn into a Huge plant. I can certainly see it being useful for certain uses, though. The false sensory input and suchlike can come in handy. I just suspect it would be situational, rather than something you'd want to wander around as all day.
I figure that if you're breaking the action economy, that's enough of a justification to be wandering around as one all day, though if you're using that broken economy to do crappy stuff, cause that's all that's available, then it's just a thing you'd use once in awhile. As before, it thus mostly comes down to what's available, if anything. As I stated in the original post, the main plan here is for gestalt optimization stuff, so while other classes or LA would normally be verboten in druid conversation, here it's reasonable. Actually, come to think of it, this would be pretty reasonable with phrenic, so I'll just call that cool udoroot plan number one. It seems like it falls a bit on the situational side of things, but the template does add wisdom, and you could pull some fun stuff off with it on occasion.

[Rubik]

SRD: (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicPowersOverview.htm#specialAbilities)


Psi-Like Abilities (Ps)
The manifestation of powers by a psionic character is considered a psi-like ability, as is the manifestation of powers by creatures without a psionic class (creatures with the psionic subtype, also simply called psionic creatures).So any udoroot with a manifesting class can manifest twice per round.

[eggynack]

SRD: (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicPowersOverview.htm#specialAbilities)

So any udoroot with a manifesting class can manifest twice per round.
Yep, that's the one I was looking for. I knew I'd seen that rule cited, but had no idea what the source on it was. I think this qualifies as reasonably sweet business, though perhaps not incredibly sweet business.

[JusticeZero]

yeah, I suspect you'd need to do some Gestalt craziness to avoid the manifesting level and casting level hits.

[Rubik]

yeah, I suspect you'd need to do some Gestalt craziness to avoid the manifesting level and casting level hits.Or just manifest Metamorphosis with a full-manifesting class with access to it, such as egoist, erudite, educated wilder, a class with the Natural World Mantle, anyone taking the Expanded Knowledge feat, or anyone willing to pay money for a manifesting of the Psychic Chirurgery power.

Then just find a way to gain a fly speed or something.

[Rebel7284]

Phrenic + LA buyoff

[eggynack]

Phrenic + LA buyoff
It still seems like a really high cost. As the old logic goes, more druid is better than less druid. Still, the cost is very frontloaded, and the benefit is going to happen pretty late, even with something to boost wild shape level, so in a high level game, this could be a viable maneuver. It's probably the closest this comes to good outside of the gestalt plan.

[Rubik]

Someone with access to Fusion + Astral Seed to super-gestalt with a shapeshifter of some sort?

But still, a manifester with Metamorphosis still gets those double-actions, so that's probably the cheapest way to go about it.

[Vaz]

I tried to do this in an Iron Chef, using Alter Self with Volodni, but unfortunately, you can't raise Alter Self's HD cap, or reduce the Udoroot to 5. Combine with Schism, and Anticipatory Strike and Synchronicity... Ardent's have major fun.

[Rubik]

unfortunately, you can't raise Alter Self's HD capReserves of Strength feat.

[Vaz]

Sorry, forgot to mention - it was part of an SLA (or maybe Su), so Reserves of Strength was out. It might have been Thrall of Orcus.